and all the pieces fall

by downn_in_flames

Summary:

You did a number on me, but honestly baby, who's counting?

When Puddlemere United picks up the infamous James Potter’s contract, the entire program is thrilled… with the exception of one assistant coach by the name of Lily Evans, who had really hoped she'd never see him again.

Notes:

lol i figured it was time to start posting this, it's only been sitting in my google docs for like over a year now

Chapter 1: burning red

"That was a sloppy turn, McNamara!" Lily Evans yells across the pitch, her voice amplified by a Sonorus charm.

The Chaser in question reacts by making his next turn with flawless technique - much more fitting for the world-class athlete he's meant to be.

She's satisfied with the change, and informs him of such with a quick shout of, "Better."

The Puddlemere United players move through the air with remarkable grace and precision - even as someone who's meant to pick apart every flaw and imperfection, even Lily has to sometimes step back and admire the sheer artistry of it all.

The Prewett twins take turns hitting bludgers, each with a loud, satisfying thwack of the wooden bat against the ball, as they soar across the pitch, slicing through Lily's magically-created targets with remarkable precision.

Puddlemere's brilliant, brilliant Seeker, Marianne Dubois, is doing quick-turn drills today, and every new whistle has her hurtling in a completely different direction almost instantly - half the time, she's so quick that Lily doesn't even see her make the actual turn.

Ozzie Kieloch is taking his time flying around the Quidditch hoops, but even from a distance Lily can tell that his eyes are trained with military precision on the Quaffle as it's passed back and forth between Charlie McNamara and Corinne Ringwald, the starting team's Chasers.

It's because they're all so perfectly in tune that the missing seventh player seems so obvious, a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch just begging to be filled.

It's hardly that simple though, because finding someone whose rhythm can keep up with theirs is a tall order.

The next few hours pass in a similar fashion - the players run drills, and Lily's there to consistently provide both encouragement and criticism as they do so, weaving around the pitch to properly supervise everyone.

If anyone had told Lily during her early years at Hogwarts that she'd find herself working as a training coach for a professional Quidditch team after graduation, she absolutely would've thought they were mental. She didn't even start attending the games regularly until fourth year, and that was only because… well, the reasoning doesn't matter much anymore.

Point being, it's a little bit of a miracle that she's managed to command the respect of a whole roster of players who were good enough to go pro when her only real play experience comes from her seventh year at Hogwarts - but they all seem to defer to her authority unquestionably.

In her defense, she knows what she's talking about, and no one in their right mind could ever suggest that she's in any way incompetent at her job. She may not have ever played in a professional match herself, but she's researched every element of the game religiously, and when it comes to actually getting the team in shape for the season, there's no one else on Puddlemere's staff who does it better.

She's made sure of that.

"Good work today," she addresses the team, flying closer towards them all so that she doesn't have to magically amplify her voice anymore. She nods at the pair of Beaters. "Prewetts, the two of you especially. Your accuracy has skyrocketed this offseason."

"Thanks, Evans," one of the twins - Fabian - responds, grinning.

"Now, all of you need to go shower, take an ice bath if you need, and be ready for the scrimmage with the reserve team tomorrow." She claps her hands together. "They'll be giving you a good run for your money, especially since you still don't have a third Chaser yet."

Honestly, the fact that the first team only has two Chasers at the moment is the only reason the game against the reserves tomorrow is going to be anything but a complete blowout. The first team is a force to be reckoned with right now - easily one of the best (if not the best) team in the English League.

Lily takes pride in the fact that she's been a not-insignificant part of that.

She flies down to the ground with the players - she's got the responsibility of putting all the gear away in the storage closets, and even though she hasn't actually been practicing with them, she's been involved enough in their training today that she's also desperately in need of a shower before leaving the practice facilities.

Practices like these - where she's left totally in charge and is the primary coach on the premises for the day - are her favourites. She's not beholden to following whatever Harrison has put together as the training plan, and she gets to be just that little bit more involved in the actual practice. It's totally worth the fact that she gets stuck lugging all the supplies back to the offices, and that she's sweating so much by the time that she's finished that all of her baby hairs are plastered to her temples.

The women's side of the locker room is cleared out when she gets there - Corinne and Mari were both likely in a rush to get home, she figures. It's nice though, having a whole locker room to herself sometimes. She can take her time, washing all the grime out of her hair as she fills the shower area up with honeysuckle-scented steam.

She doesn't have anywhere else to be today - it's just this one training session on her schedule. She's got a little work to do in the office, recording practice stats and other relevant information for the other coaches who weren't at this particular training session, but that shouldn't take too long. She'll be home before noon, most likely. Maybe she'll work on stocking up her potions stores when she gets home; even though she's not doing potionmaking as a career like she'd once expected to, it's a fun hobby - and saves her quite a bit of money over buying premade brews.

Showered and fully dressed - in an only-slightly-different set of joggers and top than the ones she was wearing for practice - she uses a quick spell to dry her hair and tie it into a messy bun on the top of her head.

This is perhaps the greatest perk of working in the Quidditch world - there's absolutely no dress code.

The coaching offices - situated adjacent to the locker rooms - are predictably abandoned. It's not a particularly inviting space anyways - a long, wide hallway with dull grey walls and doors leading into each office - but the complete lack of any other human presence makes it even bleaker. Luckily, Lily's office has a window, so it's at least a little brighter than the common area.

Lily's office is also the clearest sign that she's the only woman who works here. Unlike the other members of the coaching staff, whose offices are nothing but a standard-issue chair and a desk covered in papers, Lily's is much more inviting. Her desk is a glossy golden wood, and the chair behind it is a well-worn maroon thing she'd found at some pureblood estate sale. She's got the same chalkboard set-up along one wall that all the other coaching offices have, but unlike those offices, it's not the only thing on the walls. She's got a massive Gryffindor Quidditch banner - which has been altered a bit since its original creation, but has all the important bits still there - hung up, as well as a bunch of photographs from both Hogwarts and her time here at Puddlemere.

All in all, she's made this little space feel like home in a way that none of her coworkers have even bothered to attempt.

She lingers in front of the chalkboard - it's full of training ideas, but almost all of them require three Chasers on the pitch, so she hasn't had the chance to put them to use yet this offseason.

Michael Andersson had shocked them all in the middle of the season last year, when he'd announced that the current season would be his last. He'd been the backbone of the Chaser team since Lily started working at Puddlemere, the player they could always trust to convert a solid play into a goal, and they still haven't found his replacement.

And it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying - they've been experimenting with various Chasers on the alternate team for weeks now, but the truth of the matter is that none of them are even remotely ready to take on the role as the central Chaser on the starting team.

The fact that they're a full month into the offseason without even a hint of a replacement strategy for their primary scorer has been a point of stress throughout the entire coaching staff, but the owner has seemed… strangely calm about it all. Lily imagines he's got some sort of plan in his back pocket - the Puddlemere organization has an insane amount of revenue in its back pocket, so Lily imagines his solution likely involves putting some of that money to use somehow.

She doesn't let herself think on that much longer, and instead sits down at her desk, opening the coaches' training binder to today's page.

She grabs a quill, dipping it into an inkpot, and begins to write, documenting all of the drills they'd done today, what looked strong, potential areas for improvement, all that stuff. Her handwriting is, by nature, incredibly messy, but she does her best to make it as legible as possible when she's filling out shared training documentation.

She finishes off with a note about the Prewetts' target accuracy, fanning the paper so that the ink has a chance to dry fully before she closes the book.

She's just about to take the binder out and put it on the shared shelf where it belongs, when she suddenly hears a flurry of activity in the common area. Which is odd, given that she's the only one who was meant to be here today.

When she steps out of her own office to investigate, she's suddenly face-to-face with Harrison, head coach and Lily's own boss. And as she looks around, she realises that practically the entire coaching staff has just walked in.

"What's going on?" she asks Harrison, trying to make sense of everyone's unexpected presence.

"Ah, you would've been here all morning, so I guess you didn't get owled," he answers. "Worthington called an all-staff meeting."

Well, shit. So much for going home and having the whole rest of the day to herself, she thinks. To Harrison, she just nods. "That certainly explains it. Any indication what it's about?"

"Nope," he answers, before heading off in the direction of the conference room.

She follows him, curiosity piqued. The owner of Puddlemere United calling an urgent all-staff meeting certainly isn't usual behavior, and almost certainly means that something major has happened.

When she gets into the conference room and starts to listen in on her coworkers' conversations, it becomes apparent that none of them know what's going on either. It seems Worthington hadn't given any indication of what this meeting is meant to be about in his message.

Lily slides into a chair next to Harrison just as Worthington walks into the room and closes the door behind him.

Unlike the coaching staff, who are all in various states of casual dress, Killian Worthington dons dark grey robes that are clearly rather expensive, his white hair neatly slicked back. His presence is a commanding one - the combination of money and power give him an unshakeable air of confidence and authority. So when he shuts the door and walks to the front of the room, all the chatter goes silent.

"Thank you all for coming and meeting me here on such short notice," he begins, looking around the table. "I have news to share - it's been in the works for a while now, but it's sensitive enough that I thought it prudent not to share until it was a done deal. But also, as Puddlemere's valued coaching staff, I also thought it important that you find it out from me rather than from the Prophet, who will inevitably catch wind of this news and plaster it on the front of tomorrow's sports section."

Lily sees a few other coaches exchange looks out of the corners of their eyes, but she keeps her focus on Worthington.

"I'm pleased to announce that Puddlemere now has its third starting Chaser." He claps his hands together, looking rather proud. "We've bought out James Potter's contract from Portree - he'll be joining our program effective immediately."

The room suddenly bursts into excited whispers about James Potter, the incredibly talented Chaser who's made a meteoric rise to the top of the Quidditch world over the last three years.

But for Lily's part, she thinks about James Potter, the boy she's seen only in magazines since they graduated, the boy she once thought she could've fallen in love with until he left her flying through the freefall alone, and all she can see is red.

Angry, burning red.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, May 1978

She's the first person he tells.

It helps that they're together when the letter arrives, revising patrol schedules at some ungodly early hour given that it's a weekend. The Great Hall is all but empty except for the two of them - the only other people here at this hour are a few young Hufflepuffs and McGonagall, who's eating alone at the high table.

He's in the middle of asking whether or not Terrence should be placed with Marina, when an envelope suddenly drops out of the sky and directly on top of the schedule he'd been consulting.

"What is - " James trails off, examining the envelope curiously. As he flips it over in his hands gingerly, Lily's eyes are immediately drawn to the dark purple seal, which James then promptly rips open.

They're on the same side of the bench, which would make it awfully easy for Lily to just read the letter over his shoulder, but instead of doing that, she finds herself watching his eyes instead. She's been doing that a lot lately - finding herself unconsciously drawn to his eyes, so expressive and vibrant even behind his thick glasses. She watches as a million tiny emotions flash through them, as he goes from squinting at the page to looking at it in what can only be described as complete and total awe.

"Bloody hell," he eventually says, before looking up at Lily. She instantly feels a bit embarrassed about the fact that she's more or less just been caught staring at him, but James doesn't even seem to register it. He's too occupied by whatever he's just read. "Did you read it? This?"

"I - " Lily stammers, still a little flustered, "no. I didn't want to - "

"Can you read it?" he asks abruptly, holding the letter out to her. "Like, aloud? Make sure I'm not just, I don't know, completely hallucinating it or anything?"

Lily blinks at him, before answering with a cautious, "Sure?"

She takes the letter from him, eyes scanning along the page as she begins to read it aloud to him. " 'Dear Mister James Potter, The coaching staff at Portree was highly impressed with your performance at our tryouts in April. As a result, we would like to offer you a position as Chaser on the first reserve team, with the potential to join the starting team as soon as next fall, contingent on your performance. The exact specifics of your contract remain up for negotiation, but we'd like for you to begin training with the team upon graduation from Hogwarts - ' "

She stops reading, looking up at him. "James, this is a - you got a professional offer."

This is the thing he's been dreaming of since he was little, and the thing he's been agonising over for the better half of seventh year. It's why he held onto the Quidditch captaincy even with his Head Boy position, why he's put so much work into the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year, why he's spent pretty much every free hour down at the pitch running drills by himself.

All of it, all for this moment.

"I - holy shit, I got a professional offer," James repeats back to her, the stunned look on his face finally giving way to a blindingly bright grin.

His happiness is contagious - Lily couldn't resist smiling back at him even if she wanted to.

"I got a professional offer!" he says again, more confident this time, before immediately pulling Lily into a hug.

She's a bit stunned at first - both by the sudden hug and by how good he smells, even though that really shouldn't be surprising at this point, because she's been noticing that one for a while - but eventually, she wraps her arms around him as well, returning the gesture.

"I knew you would," she says softly, just loud enough for him to hear. "Always knew it."

He pulls back to look her in the eyes, hands coming up to rest on her shoulders, and it's like the world comes to a screeching halt in that moment. The joy in his golden-flecked eyes is something she'll easily be able to commit to memory, as easy as she knows the words to an old song. And in that moment, it's like all she wants is right there in front of her, and it would be so easy for one of them to just close the tiny amount of space between them and -

"Fuck, I should probably go tell the boys," James says, completely ruining the moment and any sort of tension or magnetism that had developed between them. "And my parents! Mum will be livid if she finds out from someone before I can get a letter to her."

Lily just smiles at him, doing her best to ignore the pounding of her heart and something she can only label as disappointment settling in her chest.

He could've kissed her then. She wanted him to kiss her then.

"You go do that," she tells him, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Wouldn't want to disappoint anyone - it's exciting news, after all."

He nods, then immediately looks down at the schedules they'd been working on, slightly panicked. "Shit, we were supposed to be - "

"I can handle it, James," she interrupts. "Go tell your mum you're going to be a professional Quidditch player."

"I - okay," he nods again. "I'll go do that. Have I told you you're the best lately?"

She flushes at that - dammit, she shouldn't be flushing like this at a simple compliment - and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Once or twice, maybe," she says, trying to act cooler than the heat in her cheeks would indicate.

"Well, you are," he confirms, before turning to the high table. "Hey Minnie! I'm going to be a professional Quidditch player!"

He takes off running out of the hall, and McGonagall doesn't even bother reprimanding him for using her first name. Instead, Lily sees a clear look of pride cross the features of their usually-stern Head of House.

Lily takes a deep breath, positive that her cheeks are about the same shade as her hair right now. He's always doing that to her, turning her bright red from the inside out, burning with something she never quite wants to label for fear of calling it love.

It seems so bright before they lose it all.

Chapter 2: so why'd you have to rain on my parade?

Lily's mind is racing for the rest of the day. So many of the memories that she'd worked so hard to push from her mind, that she'd learned to block out every time she saw his name mentioned in a Quidditch publication, come rushing back to her now that James is so imminently about to become a part of her life again.

She goes for a long run in the afternoon, in the hopes that it'll help clear her mind, but it ends up having the opposite effect - there's nothing along the winding trail to focus on beyond her own thoughts. She can't stop fixating on him, on their past, on all her feelings about their history that she thought she'd gotten over already.

And so needless to say, by the time 5 o'clock rolls around, she's in desperate need of both a drink and someone to vent to - which is why she finds herself at the Leaky Cauldron, nursing a firewhiskey and waiting on Marlene.

She doesn't drink much - the only times she does is when decorum demands it, and even then it's only to keep up appearances and not for the actual sensation of it - but she does make the occasional exception.

And days like today… they're a worthwhile exception for sure.

She doesn't have much of a taste for this place though, at least not since she became of age and ceased to see it as her main point of entry to the magic world. The regulars here are always just a bit too rowdy and disorderly for her taste, the surfaces just a bit too grimy. Although she supposes she's been a bit coddled by her lifestyle in recent years, and perhaps she might not be so judgmental of it otherwise.

The one thing, however, that she's quite certain she'd continue to be repulsed by no matter what the circumstances, are the leering gazes of some of the men at tables nearly, many of whom look to be at least thirty years her senior.

Lily knows she's always been naturally pretty - this knowledge was something she'd once felt ashamed of, as if grasping the weight of her own attractiveness would somehow diminish it or instantly earn her the title of a narcissist, but a few years worth of adulthood have brought her the understanding that pretending to be blind to it does no service to anyone. She's objectively good-looking, bordering on striking - rich auburn hair against alabaster skin, dotted with a nearly invisible layer of freckles, and bright green eyes. She stands out almost immediately in a crowd due to that alone.

She's grateful that she's still wearing rather loosely-fitted clothing, as she's quite sure that anything more form-fitting would only amplify those glances tenfold. She knows from experience that people tend to pay attention to her body when she accentuates it properly - something she's not afraid to weaponise when necessary, but right now, while she's trying to moodily drink in peace, is more of a nuisance than anything.

Lily hears Marlene before she sees her - her best friend has a loud, distinctive voice, and she orders a firewhiskey from the barkeep like she's known him for years.

Unlike Lily, Marlene is dressed in professional-looking robes that make it clear she's come directly from the Ministry. Her blonde hair is neatly curled down her back, and she looks fully put together in a way that Lily herself absolutely does not.

Whereas Lily's the type to draw attention for her looks, Marlene draws it for her charm. It's not that Marlene isn't pretty - because she is, she's stunning really - but she's got a way of carrying herself that seems to instantly make every man she meets pure putty in her hands.

It's a skill quite hilariously put to waste by the fact that she's not even remotely interested in them.

"Would you believe Ishmael is out of Ogden's?" Marlene says as greeting, sliding into the chair opposite Lily. "I had to order the cheap stuff, like some sort of commoner."

Lily herself honestly can't tell the difference between high-end and low-end alcohol - a side effect of how little she drinks to begin with - so her own glass is filled with whatever the barkeep wanted to give her.

"How tragic," Lily replies dryly, with a hint of a smile on her face. "How ever will you survive this atrocity?"

Marlene simply rolls her eyes. "You'd understand if you drank as much as I do."

Lily hums, but she knows that, even if she was the type to drink regularly, she probably wouldn't be able to afford the nice stuff all the time anyways. Her experiences with luxury are… situationally limited. "Perhaps."

Marlene takes a sip, grimacing a little at the burn. "But anyways, you said you had something you needed to vent about?"

Lily takes a moment, trying to figure out where to even start. Marlene's been her best friend since their first year at Hogwarts, so she, perhaps more than anyone, understands the extent of her and James' complicated history and all the feelings Lily has about him now.

Eventually, she just settles for the most direct route. "Puddlemere has picked up Potter's contract."

Marlene doesn't react at first, and Lily can see the exact moment that it hits her. "Potter as in… your Potter?"

"He was never mine, and he certainly isn't mine now, so I'm not sure that descriptor works, but yes. Potter as in James."

Marlene hums, taking another sip of her firewhiskey. "That's… fuck, that's going to be a real fun one."

Lily laughs sarcastically. "That's an understatement if I ever heard one. But honestly, what are the fucking odds?"

The Quidditch world is a relatively small one, but it's also just large enough that it's easy to avoid people you don't want anything to do with. In all her time at Puddlemere, she's never even been so much as within ten metres of James. Which has been absolutely brilliant, and she would've happily kept that up for the next ten or twenty years if he'd just stayed on his own damn team.

But while it's easy to avoid people within the Quidditch world as a whole, it's next-to-impossible to avoid anyone within the same program. She knows all the Puddlemere players like they're her own family, knows all of their strengths and weaknesses and weird pre-game rituals by heart.

And now James is about to be one of those players.

"I honestly can't believe Portree sold him," Marlene thinks aloud. "He was, like, their star player last year."

Lily just shrugs. She's sure it comes down to the fact that Worthington undoubtedly offered the owner of Portree a sum of money they couldn't walk away from.

Marlene keeps musing on it. "I wonder if it's an image thing? Like, they decided his talent wasn't worth dealing with all the bad press?"

Secretly, Lily doubts that's the case. Yes, James' behavior frequently lands him in a whole sort of unfavorable news stories, but no one in the Quidditch world actually cares about that. As long as the players show up to practice and consistently perform well in games, they can get up to fuck-all in their off-hours.

She's quite sure there's more than one team in the league that would even brush off an actual criminal allegation if one of their star players ended up getting charged. It's just the way of the industry.

"But back to the important stuff," Marlene says, changing the subject, "how are you feeling about it?"

Lily sighs - it's the million Galleon question, and one that she doesn't really have a clear answer for. "After everything, I really would've been thrilled to never have to see him again for the rest of my life. And now I'm going to have to interact with him on a daily basis and just… pretend like everything's fine." She laughs bitterly at the thought of that.

"You don't… you don't still fancy him, do you?"

Lily's sour laugh becomes a genuine one at the mere implication. "Oh, fuck no," she answers immediately. "Have you seen the asshole he's turned into? I don't fuck with that at all. I might've liked him in seventh year, but he's a totally different person now - and in all the wrong ways."

Marlene cringes. "Yeah, that's true - he… hasn't exactly handled Quidditch fame well."

"That's the understatement of the century," Lily returns. "I work with famous Quidditch players on a daily basis… and not a single one of them is anywhere as near as bad as he is."

"And it's funny, because I always figured he was the type who wouldn't let the fame get to his head," Marlene muses. "Just because, well, he was a prick for such a long time, then he grew out of it, and you would've thought he would've stayed that way."

Lily hums. "I don't think it's that far-fetched - he always did love the spotlight. Always loved the attention that came with it."

Her friend just shrugs.

"I just… I can't believe I'm going to have to spend every day with him," Lily continues. "And I'm just going to have to act like he's just like any of the other players, like there isn't history between us… although, I suppose, nothing ever really did happen anyways."

"But it almost did," Marlene looks surprisingly earnest. "Seriously, we all thought something would - hell, I'm pretty sure there was a betting pool on it in Gryffindor Tower, and not a single person won it because no one wanted to bet that you two wouldn't get together at all."

Lily laughs derisively, too single-minded to even truly process the fact that her friends were betting on her relationship status. "Well then, I guess none of you took into account the idea that James would just decide to completely forget about my existence as soon as we all graduated."

"No, none of us really expected that," Marlene replies with a grimace. And then, "So, how are you going to handle it?"

"I don't know, I guess I could try to forgive him for all of it? That's the nice thing to do, right?" The words sound so ridiculous coming out of her mouth that Lily immediately laughs. "God, I can't even say that with a straight face."

Marlene snorts at that.

Maybe, years ago, when Lily was young and trusting and hadn't yet been stabbed in the back by so many of the people who she'd once called her friends, forgiveness would have been on the table. But Lily's not that naïve girl anymore - she's gone through too much shit to give a second chance to anyone who's burned her once before.

"I'm going to do my job," Lily eventually tacks on, "because I refuse to let him take that from me. But other than what's absolutely required, I want nothing to do with him."

"Yeah, that's fair," Marlene says, before taking another sip of her drink. "And I'll just hope like hell that Puddlemere comes to its senses and realises they don't want some posh partying playboy on their Quidditch team sooner rather than later."

Lily cackles, delighted that Marlene is indulging her bitterness and giving it right back. "You're incredible, and I'll fucking toast to that."

A wicked grin appears on Marlene's face as she clinks glasses with Lily. "What are real friends for?"

 

---

 

She forgets about it all - about him - for a solid few hours, as she and Marlene order dinner and start talking about anything and everything that isn't related to James Potter. Marlene's consistently full of interesting stories - she's currently got a position in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, and a new bizarre and interesting case lands on her desk almost daily.

As a result, Lily's in a notably better mood when she gets back to her flat, hanging her purse up on the hook as she enters.

The flat itself isn't anything special - she makes a decent salary in her coaching gig, but given that she lives by herself, she doesn't see the need for anything much larger. Much like her office at Puddlemere, the whole thing has a sort of warmth to it that makes up for the small size.

She's in such a good mood now that she really doesn't know why she does it - perhaps the three firewhiskeys she'd consumed over the course of the evening are fuel - but she finds herself walking to the side of her bed and reaching underneath it.

After a good bit of searching, her hand makes contact with what she was looking for, and she pulls a black box out. It's not much larger than a shoebox, and there's a thick layer of dust along the top - evidence of just how long it's been since she's looked at it.

She pulls the lid off, and sure enough, the contents inside are exactly as she'd left them. A stack of photos, followed by a few torn-out magazine articles.

She picks up the photos first - despite the years and the ways that the subjects of the images have changed, the moving figures looking back at her are the same as ever.

First is the Gryffindor Quidditch team of 1977-1978. Lily had tried out and made the team that year, something that surprised pretty much everyone in the House - no one even knew Lily could play, much less be good enough to make the team. Well, no one except James, that is, as he'd been giving her lessons for most of their sixth year and had practically begged her to try out for their vacant Seeker spot.

She tries not to think too much about the gravity of the role he played in introducing her to the sport that's become fairly central to her existence.

In this picture, though, they're all attempting to look at the camera rather stoically - but then someone mutters something and they all crack up. She doesn't even remember what the actual joke was, but she does remember just how much they'd felt like a team in that moment.

Next up is a shot from the Hogwarts Express, of Lily and Mary and Marlene and Dorcas and James and Sirius and Peter all squished into one compartment, with Remus behind the lens of the camera. Lily's legs are across James' lap, and he's laughing at something she's saying. Meanwhile, Marlene is rolling her eyes and Sirius is trying to throw a Bertie Bott's bean and catch it in his mouth.

She continues to flick through all the photos, as the number of people in the images gradually starts to dwindle, until every single one is just of Lily and James. There's one of them in the middle of a snowball fight, another where she's explaining something to him while they study together, and even one where she's just pulled off charming his hair bright green.

And then the final one, which is the one that feels the most like a stab in the gut. The two of them are up in the Astronomy Tower - for some reason, the Gryffindor seventh years had all decided to take a break from NEWTs studying to spend an evening up there with food nicked from the kitchens and wine smuggled in from Hogsmeade. In the photo, she and James are sitting side by side; she's got her head resting against his shoulder, and he's got an arm wrapped around her waist as he looks down at her with a sweet expression.

If Lily didn't know any better, didn't know what happened just a few weeks after this photo was taken, she'd think the two people in that picture were going to end up together.

Truth be told, her heart still aches looking at this picture. She didn't lie when she told Marlene she doesn't fancy James anymore - she doesn't fancy present-day James at all. But past-James, the boy who always brought her sweets while she was studying and made her laugh even on her worst days and would've died to defend the people he cared about… she misses him.

It's for the best that nothing came of this picture though - something clearly illustrated by what's directly underneath it.

As she pulls aside that last photograph, the tone changes dramatically. Unlike the photographs, which unearth some sense of nostalgia in her, this fills her with something that toes the line between anger and disdain. It's a magazine article with the title Quidditch's Newest Bad Boy emblazoned across the top of the page. Underneath are a series of pictures from a random nightclub, all with James front and centre. He's taking a shot of heaven knows what in one, dancing with a brunette in another, and snogging a totally different girl in the third.

Everything that follows is exactly the same: all snippets from Witch Weekly or the social section of the Prophet, starring James in some vaguely incriminating position - sometimes with his newest flavour of the week, sometimes obviously drunk or hungover, sometimes just generally looking like a complete pompous ass as he lounges in the VIP section of a club. Nearly every article also includes a reference his prowess on the Quidditch field though, as if his ability to throw and catch a Quaffle with some degree of consistency is somehow a justification for the rest of it.

Truthfully, Lily's got no fucking clue why she's kept these, why she's let them infect the otherwise pleasant memories in this box associated with James and her Hogwarts years. But then again, it's an apt metaphor for what those stories have done to those memories within her own mind - tainted them with the knowledge that the dream of a boy from back then would soon become a nightmare of a man.

All of it feels dirty now. She's kept this dumb box of memories even as they've gotten ruined in the aftermath, and… god, she just wants to lock the gates on that part of her life and throw away the key forevermore.

She wants to burn it all.

And so that's exactly what she does.

"Incendio," she whispers, before she can think it through enough to regret it, and watches as the corner of an article catches fire.

The small blaze spreads quickly, flames licking at the edges of the papers as they start to shrivel and turn black, sending everything up in smoke. It's almost enchanting, watching as the memories - both good and bad - are incinerated in a burst of red and orange and gold.

The very last thing she sees before it all turns to ash is that one picture of them on the Astronomy Tower.

Good fucking riddance.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, June 1978

The bass beat of the music is so loud that it's rattling the chandeliers in the Gryffindor Common Room - Lily thinks to herself that either someone did some awfully powerful silencing charms or that the faculty of Hogwarts have just decided that there are no rules in the aftermath of the Quidditch Cup final, because there's no way the party would be allowed to continue like this otherwise.

People are dancing and talking animatedly to each other all throughout the room, and there's a makeshift bar set up in one corner. The actual trophy has long since been abandoned on a random table, and the only evidence that this is really a Quidditch party instead of just a normal one is that occasionally someone will shout 'Gryffindor!' and be answered with a chorus of cheers.

Lily takes a sip of butterbeer, quite comfortable in her place on the couch, away from most of the action. At one point, Marlene and Mary were there with her, but then Marlene snuck off to go snog Dorcas somewhere, and Mary went off in pursuit of another drink and never came back to the couches. She's dancing with a sixth year boy now.

So now she's alone, watching the party continue to unfold around her, feeling a bit like Jay Gatsby in her sense of detachment from the debauchery.

"Liiiily!" That distance is abruptly shattered, as James jumps over the back of the couch and practically on top of her.

It's abundantly clear to Lily that he's had more than his fair share of drinks tonight - although she supposes he's probably earned it. They'd clinched the Quidditch Cup in their final year and he has a professional position waiting for him on the other side of graduation - what's one night of letting go and celebrating that, really?

His proximity also has the unintended side effect of making her suddenly feel unexpectedly warm - she hopes he'll chalk the pink in her cheeks up to alcohol consumption rather than the reality in which she's blushing because of the way his thigh is pressed up against her own.

"My favourite and most wonderful Seeker," he says to her with a wide grin. "What's got you hiding out in the corner of a party? You're missing all the action!"

"I can see all the action perfectly from right here, actually," she replies, taking another sip of her butterbeer.

He laughs, and he's so close that Lily can smell the firewhiskey on his breath. "You make the game-winning catch and you're still completely sober at the victory party - you sure are a wild one, Evans."

"I'm not completely sober," she defends, waving the butterbeer at him as proof, even though the stuff is barely alcoholic.

"You're still sitting in a corner alone while everyone around you is fucking celebrating the shit you accomplished," he retorts, before pushing himself up to a standing position and only wobbling slightly. "Come on, you don't need to get drunk, but at least dance with me. Pleeeease?"

He holds out his hand, and Lily takes it, because of course she does. She doesn't even think twice about taking him up on an offer to dance, because she's been trying for months to pretend like she doesn't fancy him and failing miserably to the point that everyone can read her feelings like an open book except him, and she'll take him up on whatever he offers.

Once he pulls her up to standing, he doesn't drop her hand, not as they start moving towards the center of the room, not as they start making their way through the crowd, not as someone just as drunk as he is bumps into him. His hand only leaves hers when the force of that bump, combined with his own intoxication sends him slamming into a table.

And not just any table, but the table where the Quidditch Cup is sitting - and the force with which he collides with the wood sends the cup teetering dangerously.

It'll almost certainly break if it goes falling to the ground, and so Lily is actually immensely grateful that James let go of her, because it allows her to reach out and catch the trophy at the last possible minute, saving it from catastrophe.

"Shit!" James swears, finding his balance again. "I don't even know how that - "

She just shakes her head at him admonishingly, but she's unable to hide the small grin from the part of her that's somehow amused with his antics. "This is why we can't have nice things," she tells him, looking around for a more secure place to put the trophy, far away from the sea of drunk teenagers. "I'm going to take this away so that you can't break it again."

She spots a nice high shelf in the corner of the room, and levitates the Cup over to it.

"Now that my buzzkill sobriety has saved the day," she says as she turns back to James, "still want to dance?"

He smiles at her, and Lily finds that she doesn't really care that he's a little too drunk. She should probably be annoyed that he's been partying so much that he almost broke the thing he cares most about, but it's somehow oddly endearing on him; she's definitely seeing him with rose-coloured glasses, but she can't really find it in herself to be bothered by that.

"You're too pretty to be a buzzkill."

At the time, she'd thought that night was an exception from the norm; James wouldn't always be that reckless and so willing to risk the things he cared about for a one-night good time.

In hindsight, maybe that night should've been a warning.

Chapter 3: baby, let the games begin

The scrimmage match goes just about as expected - the six-player first team scrapes out a victory thanks to Mari being a miracle worker of a Seeker, but having only two Chasers does put them at a marked disadvantage otherwise.

Lily sits and takes notes the whole time, and as usual, she's the only one of the coaches who does. But watching matches always gives her ideas - weaknesses to work on, new formations to experiment with, new plays to try. It's perhaps unorthodox compared to her counterparts, who don't take quite an academic approach to the game, but she knows she'd be missing out if she didn't keep record of things.

In literally any other situation, Lily would be absolutely thrilled that they're finally getting a third Chaser again. There are so many plays and drills they've been unable to fully execute with two-thirds of a Chaser team, and the full first string team will undoubtedly be a force to be reckoned with.

The entire rest of the program is thrilled when they find out, as soon as the scrimmage comes to an end. The players are incredibly excited when it's announced that the search for a third Chaser has proved fruitful, and even more so when it's announced just who that third Chaser is.

Corinne's the only other person to show even the slightest bit of reservation at the name 'James Potter,' but that look of concern fades as quickly as it'd come the moment that Charlie starts reciting some of James' stats from the previous season.

The first practice he's set to attend is a small, Chasers-only session on a Monday, designed to work on getting the three of them more familiar with each other before doing a full team session. Lily's attendance at that practice is entirely optional, and while she's normally the type to attend even the optional sessions on her work schedule, she chooses not to this time.

She's delaying the inevitable, she knows this, knows that she'll have to see his stupid face in person soon enough, but she likes the idea of waiting for a full-team practice - there, at least, she can direct most of her focus to everything else that isn't him and hopefully avoid having to interact with him one-on-one.

She's got enough self-awareness of her short temper to know that she won't be able to hold back her frustration with him the moment she's alone with him. She's normally great at faking a smile when she needs to, but it was always different with him. He always seemed to know exactly how to get under her skin.

And that, she imagines, is one thing that hasn't changed.

The night before he's set to start at Puddlemere, she dreams about him. And unfortunately, it's not some sort of acting out a revenge fantasy type of dream, which is what her conscious brain would've massively preferred. Rather, it's a lights-down-low, wandering-hands type of dream. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sheets twisted around her legs, breathing hard, and full of a profound sense of irritation - mostly at herself for her subconscious for daring to conjure any of those images.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep after that - she eventually takes half a Sleeping Draught to get through the rest of the night, because her mind just won't stop racing. She keeps imagining all the potential ways she could see James for the first time in three years, and she starts to think that maybe the dread of it is even worse than actually seeing him again will be.

Despite not attending the Chaser session, she still goes into the coaching offices the next morning. One of the other assistants - McGinty, maybe - is running a ground session later in the day, and she figures she'll probably go help out at that one. It'll make up for her guilt for skipping the first optional session.

It seems, for all intents and purposes, to be a calculated decision.

However, it proves to be a poorly calculated one, because Lily fails to consider the contingency that James might make an appearance before practice. The offices are, after all, adjacent to the locker rooms - and share an access hallway with them.

She pushes the main door open and walks into the building, slightly zoned out from her lack of sleep and not really paying much attention to her surroundings. And so it's not until it's far too late that she looks up and realises that walking down the hallway, towards the exit and therefore right towards her, is none other than the very person she'd set this whole plan in place to avoid.

At this discovery, she experiences two very distinct trains of thought.

The first is that fuck, he's really gotten fit since school. It's not like he wasn't back then - though he was a bit wiry and hadn't quite filled out his height yet - but now… Merlin and Morgana. His shoulders are noticeably broader, and even under a long-sleeved shirt she can tell that he took whatever weight-training sessions they did at Portree seriously. His hair is as dark and wild and messy as ever, and the round wire frames that once were an ever-present feature on his face are gone entirely. None of this is new information - she's seen photos of him in the paper over the past few years - but seeing those changes in person is somehow significantly more alarming.

He's a thief, running off with girls' hearts and never saying sorry, and for the briefest of moments, Lily understands why they let him.

And somehow, that manages to annoy the shit out of her. He shouldn't have been allowed to get this hot while also turning into a massive dick. Karma should've done something about that.

The second train of thought is that she would very much like to not run into him right now, but there are exactly zero doors in this section of this godforsaken hallway, ruining any chance she might've had of making a convenient detour. She's got half a mind to just turn around and make a run for it, but she knows it's too late for that, and running off now will only make their inevitable meeting more awkward. She may want to avoid him, but she's not going to act like a fucking coward to do so.

So she sticks her chin up just a little bit higher, hoping she'll be able to walk past him without him recognising her - or worse, talking to her.

She's massively unlucky in that regard though - her whole morning's proving to be an unrelenting series of cursed events, really - because he notices her almost as soon as she's within a few metres of him. He actually freezes at the sight of her, eyes going wide in a way that she'd probably find comical if it didn't also ignite an anger that's significantly stronger.

Fuck, he hasn't even opened his mouth yet and he's already destroyed her self-restraint.

He blinks a few times, like he doesn't really believe she's standing there and that she's very well just a figment of his imagination. "Lily? Lily Evans? What are you doing here?"

So much for making it past him unnoticed.

She huffs, and it's oddly reminiscent of the way she used to address him in their early years of school. She didn't like him much then either. "I'm on the coaching staff."

If it's even possible, he somehow looks even more bewildered at that answer. "You're... what? Since when do you care about professional Quidditch?"

It is, more or less, exactly what she expected out of him. In a slightly more rational state, she might've understood his confusion - at least partially. People don't usually just dive straight into Quidditch coaching positions right after Hogwarts; they usually play in the league for a couple of years or start off with coaching teen summer programs. And Lily hadn't exactly shown an interest in coaching or even any sort of investment in a pro team while they were in school either. So by those standards, Lily's presence is an anomaly, but by god, he would've known this if he'd kept in touch with her, or hell, just at least bothered to even slightly care about what people he once called his friends were getting up to after they all graduated. It's not like she's a new face around here.

"Since about six months after graduation, when I got this job," she answers icily. She's not going to give him any more information than that - both because she doesn't owe him an explanation and because even if she wanted to, there are many details about the way she ended up here that she can't talk about with him anyways.

His eyebrows scrunch together, and one of his hands jumps up to his hair - it seems that particular habit hasn't faded with time. "Huh, well, that's news to me."

"You know, that doesn't surprise me... at all." She doesn't try to conceal the simmering fury in her tone - and she vaguely thinks to herself that even if she'd been trying to hide it, she would've failed miserably. Her instincts had been right - he's always had a way of bringing out the rawest version of her emotions, and that talent is yet another thing that apparently hasn't changed in three years.

He recognises the hostility in her tone, and matches it with a coldness of his own as his hand drops abruptly back down to his side. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

She squares her shoulders at him - she refuses to let herself be cowed into submission by the simmering threat in his tone. "I mean that you're a self-absorbed prick who doesn't care about anyone but himself."

It's evident that he wasn't expecting that response - he looks as though she's just slapped him, mouth agape as he struggles for a response.

She doesn't wait around for him to come up with an answer though, just turns in the direction she was originally heading and walks away from the scene as quickly as her legs can carry her.

There will probably be hell to pay at some point for snapping at their newest 'star player' like that, but Lily can't really find it in herself to be worried about that just yet. Right now, she's riding on an adrenaline high; telling James exactly how she feels about him now has given her a strange sort of rush.

She feels wholly alive, in a way only rivalled by flying.

When she gets back to her office and sits down at her desk, lets her breathing and heart rate slow, the rush of it gradually ebbs away.

Logically, it was probably the best first interaction with him that she could've asked for - she's made it abundantly clear that she has no plans to tolerate his bullshit, and she can't help but be proud of the stunned look she left him with.

She's not inclined to think of this thing with him as any sort of game, but if she did deign to think of it that way, it'd be safe to say she's won the first point.

 

---

 

The one positive outcome of running into James first thing in the morning is that there's no point avoiding the Chasers-only practice anymore. And while she may not like James, she loves the team, and she's incredibly interested in how the new trio will work together.

She doesn't go into the air like she would in a normal practice, like Harrison is right now. Instead, she lurks at the back of the stands, out of view of anyone on the pitch.

The three Chasers start off with a few laps, then some basic drills, then some free play. And with every move they make, it becomes more and more evident that James was a perfect choice to round out the trio. He's got so much of Michael's natural leadership, and the other two Chasers fall right back into that easy dynamic they'd gotten used to with their previous third.

James himself is… enchanting. From a purely professional standpoint, she can admit that he makes a broom look like an extension of himself, steering and controlling it like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's graceful, even as he makes sharp turns or jumps for a Quaffle catch.

She's mesmerised by it; she usually watches Quidditch with the eye of a coach, looking for things to nitpick and potential flaws, but right now, she just lets herself enjoy the show, taking in the magic of it all. It's easy to see why people flock to these games, why tickets sell for sky-high prices, why everyone clamors to meet these players in person, when you let yourself get sucked into the beauty and excitement of it all.

She loses that, sometimes, being around it all the time.

After losing track of how long she's been there, she begrudgingly admits that James is the perfect addition to Puddlemere. She still doesn't think his skills should entirely erase the fact that he's a self-serving asshole off the pitch, like so many of the Quidditch commentators do, but he's exactly the kind of player on the pitch that they need to dominate the English League this year.

She turns to head back to her office - she doesn't want to stay here too much longer and risk someone discovering that she's just lurking in the shadows instead of either helping with the practice or actually getting work done.

Never mind that she doesn't actually have much work to do at the moment anyways, but it's more the principle of the thing. She'd never want to be accused of slacking off in any way; she doesn't have the luxury of half-arsing her job - not here, not with these people, not with the way she got her start.

So when she gets back to her office, she closes the door most of the way, to give off the illusion that she's hard at work. But as soon as she's behind closed doors, she slacks off entirely. She uses the enchanted notepad on her desk to send a brief message to Benjy - my place, 9pm - and reads the entire Daily Prophet cover to cover.

She uses the kettle in her office to make a cup of tea - strong, because she's exhausted and needs all the caffeine she can get - and sips it while she reads.

Finally, when she's exhausted all of her other options, she grabs a miniature Quaffle out of her desk drawer, tossing it up in the air aimlessly. She's not sure when she picked this up as a means of entertaining her boredom, but it's gotten her through a lot, and she's gotten rather good at trick throws.

Lily's got no idea how long she keeps that up for.

Eventually though, her attention is captured by the sound of Harrison's voice coming down the hallway. He's talking to someone, giving them a tour of the facility, and Lily realises with a shiver that the person he's guiding around is almost certainly their new Chaser.

She abruptly drops the miniature Quaffle, letting it roll under her desk. She may not technically have anything that she's working on right now, but if Harrison and James are about to stop by her office, then by god, she's going to do her best to look incredibly busy.

Suddenly, a new worry strikes her - will he tell Harrison about the things she said to him while she's right in front of them?

She shakes that off almost immediately - James is a lot of things, but he's never been a snitch. He'd always been the type to solve problems by taking them into his own hands rather than going to an authority figure - something that got him into quite a lot of scrapes and frustrated the hell out of Lily when they were in school, but that she's quite grateful for right about now. Trying to explain to Harrison why she'd insulted their new player within minutes of meeting him would be an unmitigated nightmare and require far more oversharing with her boss than she'd ever like to indulge.

Sure enough, in less than a minute, there's a courtesy knock on her slightly-ajar door.

"Come in," she calls out, trying her best to act like she's not expecting this.

Her door swings open, revealing Harrison and James, the latter of whom is visibly freshly showered. She quickly turns her attention away from him, focusing on the head coach instead.

"I'm giving Mister Potter here a tour of the premises," he tells her.

Lily puts on a fake smile that borders on a simper. "Mister Potter, welcome to Puddlemere."

When she looks over at him, he's already got his eyes on her. He's studying her intensely, and if he's surprised by her change in tone from just a few hours ago, he doesn't show it.

"This is one of our assistant coaches, Lily Evans," Harrison explains, sending a shallow grin her way. "Don't be fooled by the pretty face - she's one of the toughest we've got."

Lily cringes internally at his words; there's no way in hell he'd be talking about any of the other coaches like that. But externally, she keeps up the artificial smile as she looks over at her boss.

Harrison suddenly looks between her and James, wheels in his head turning. "Now that I think about it, if my math is right, you two were at Hogwarts around the same time, yes?"

"We were - Evans was Head Girl my last year." James grins at her, and it's almost devilish - teeth bared and a glint of something practically predatory in his eyes.

"Oh, you must've given her hell then, I'm sure." Harrison laughs and looks at James, like they're both in on some inside joke, entirely oblivious to the tension in the air.

But James still doesn't look away from her, and there's an unmistakable challenge in his eyes. She looks right back at him, careful not to betray any emotion while Harrison's in the room. "I imagine I did," he says eventually, finally breaking eye contact with Lily to look back at his coach.

Lily has to bite back a bitter laugh at the fact that he's conveniently choosing not to mention the fact that he himself was also Head Boy that year. He'd been working with her, not against her.

Does he really care so much about his new life, his new reputation, that he'd rather act like the things before it didn't happen? Does he really think the fact that he was Head Boy - the supposed pinnacle of a model student - would damage his present-day identity so much that he has to rewrite his own past?

The idea that he's ashamed of that person, and is proud to be this one - so opposite to Lily's feelings about past and present-day James - sets off another wave of anger under her skin. She tightens her grip on her quill, almost to the point of breaking it.

She sees James' gaze drop to her white knuckles, then come back up to her face. He smirks at her - he knows he's riled her up and he's proud of it.

"Yes, we'll have to reminisce on our Hogwarts days some time," she answers diplomatically, even though she has no intention of doing anything of the sort. "But it can wait - I wouldn't want to keep you from finishing your tour of the training complex."

"Yeah, I'll see you around," he replies, the smug look on his face seemingly becoming a permanent fixture. "It's good to see you again, Evans."

Her quill does snap at that - although luckily, Harrison has started talking to James again as they move to the next office, so no one else hears it.

How dare he say it's 'good to see her again' that casually - like they were merely acquaintances in school who just so happened to run into each other after graduation, and not close friends until he'd unceremoniously cut her off.

And the goddamn self-satisfied grin on his face the whole time, like he was intentionally picking his words to say just the things he knew would piss her off the most. Like he was trying to bait her, like he wanted to see if he could make her snap.

If that's how he wants to do things, then so be it. If he wants to turn this into some sort of challenge, she'll gladly take him up on that; not only that, but she'll win.

If he wants to play with her, then baby, let the games begin.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, August 1977

Lily sits alone in a booth at the Leaky Cauldron with two butterbeers in front of her, occasionally looking up at the door while also trying to avoid eye contact with anyone else in the bar in the process. James had owled her a few days ago, asking to meet her here. She should've expected he'd be late.

Not that he's actually late yet - she's just early - but he's never exactly been known for his punctuality.

She's just resigned herself to waiting at least another ten minutes, when suddenly, a dark-haired boy with glasses is sliding into the seat across from her.

She checks her watch. "You're… early," she blurts out, in lieu of an actual greeting.

"Yeah, well, new year, new me," he replies, with a grin.

"I think that's more of a January thing."

"I think it's perfectly applicable for new school years," he reasons, before looking at the mug in front of him. "Is this for me?"

"Well, I certainly didn't order two for myself," she says, taking a sip of her own drink. Truthfully, she'd bought her drink ahead of time on purpose - if she'd waited until James had arrived, he'd undoubtedly try to buy her drink for her, and that'd just inevitably end up feeling far too much like a date for her to be comfortable with.

And buying James' as well was a last-minute decision after the man by the door had openly ogled at her as she walked up to the bar and made her feel distinctly uncomfortable; the second drink on the table made it clear that someone else was joining her and that the seat across from her was not up for grabs.

"Thanks, Evans." He takes a sip of butterbeer, and Lily takes the moment of silence to study him for the first time since he arrived. She's almost positive he's gotten even taller since the last time she saw him - the boy's never going to stop growing, it seems - and his hair is shorter than it was at the end of term, although no less manic.

"So, what was it that you needed to talk about that you wanted to tell me in person?" Lily doesn't cut any corners, and gets right to the reason that they're here.

James sets his mug down slowly, his hand burying itself in his hair. That hair mussing annoyed her in the past, but she's come to realise that sometimes it's just a nervous habit of his, not something he's doing for her benefit. He's stopped obnoxiously showing off and persistently flirting with her, but the hair thing has remained.

"Congratulations on Head Girl, by the way," he answers, avoiding answering her question directly. "Remus told me you got it - although really, I wasn't exactly surprised. There's no one else in our year who deserves it more."

She can feel her cheeks warm at the compliment. "Thank you," she says. "I've still yet to figure out who Head Boy is, and Remus said he didn't get it and didn't know who it was, so I've been trying to pull a list of who all it could be and determining whether or not I'm going to be miserable working with them, and - "

He interrupts her rambling. "I'm Head Boy."

She's not quite sure she heard him right, so she says nothing, waits for him to elaborate or repeat himself.

"That's why I asked you to meet me before we went back to school," he says, not really meeting her eyes. "I even owled Dumbledore about it, just to confirm he hadn't, you know, completely fucked up and sent the badge to the wrong person, but… yeah. I wanted to tell you in person, because I know I'm probably the very last person you would've ever expected to have to work with this year, and throwing that on you right before the first prefects' meeting seemed like too much of a shock to put on a person, so… here we are."

He looks out of breath when he finishes, which kind of makes sense - she doesn't think he took a single breath in that entire speech.

She has to think about her response before answering him. "You're definitely not the last person I would've expected," is what she eventually leads with.

And it's genuine - while it's true that Heads are most often chosen from the prefects of that year, the whole point of a Head is that they're a leader, someone who can take charge in a situation and influence the student body. And both of those are things that James is undeniably good at.

"You've been Quidditch captain for two years now," she continues, "and no one can say you don't have significant sway over most of the Hogwarts student body. It's an unorthodox choice, but it makes sense, in a way."

He looks up at her. "Really?"

He seems so genuinely befuddled by her reaction that she almost wants to laugh. "Sure," she tells him. "I mean, you're probably going to go down in history as the Head Boy with the largest detention record while serving in the role though."

Something shifts in his expression at that, and suddenly, he's incredibly serious. "I don't want that record," he replies. "I… I still don't really understand why I'm Head Boy, but since it seems like the title is sticking, I'm not going to fuck it up. If I'm going to be Head Boy, I want to be a good one."

If it weren't for the look on his face, Lily would think he's taking the piss. James Potter, model student? The concept is laughable - seeing just how many ways he can get into trouble with his mates has been a central mission of his since first year. But the usual sparkle of mischief in his eyes when he's messing around is completely gone as he addresses her now.

She exhales. "Wow. New year, new you, indeed."

"Mind you, I'll almost definitely still end up in a couple detentions this year, just hopefully not quite as many as years past."

"Of course," she nods. "Sometimes you just have to sneak out past curfew and booby trap the Slytherin common room, you know?"

He chuckles, serious demeanour beginning to fade away. "Hey now, there was never any proof that I was the one responsible for that."

She'd never admit it to him, but all of the Slytherins showing up to breakfast the next morning with their robes covered in really bad lion drawings had made her laugh so hard she'd choked on her pumpkin juice.

"I'd say the fact that you spent half of Charms the day before doodling atrociously proportioned lions is some solid proof, but that's just me." She takes a sip of her butterbeer, looking at him coyly.

James coughs. "You saw that and you didn't turn me in? Consider me stunned, Evans."

She shrugs. "I'm not a complete killjoy, even if I have been a prefect for the past two years."

"You know, that's actually what I wanted to ask you about," James replies, then backtracks when he realises the implication of his words. "Not the killjoy thing, I don't think you're a killjoy at all - I mean the prefect thing. You've been a prefect for two years already, and I've got no idea what I'm getting myself into, and if I want to do this well… I figure I should probably learn what's actually expected of me."

Wow, he's really committed to taking this seriously. And she respects him a lot for that. She'd never expected there'd come a day where she'd be teaching James Potter the ropes of how to lead a group of prefects, but she finds that she's completely forgotten the names of anyone else who could've been Head Boy. The idea of having him as her partner in this endeavor for the next year seems… almost downright pleasant.

"Alright then, class is in session," she says, clasping her hands together on the table. "How to be the best Head Boy Hogwarts has ever seen, taught by yours truly. Are you ready for it?"

Chapter 4: now i'm lying on the cold hard ground

The thing that she has with Benjy is simple, uncomplicated.

It started out of convenience - once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, they ran into each other at a bar on one of those rare occasions where Marlene had succeeded in dragged her out, and they got to catching up on their lives since graduation. He'd been a few years above her in school - Head Boy when she'd just been appointed prefect - so their paths had crossed just enough for them to be interested in how the other's life had changed in the years since.

Benjy was getting over a break-up and Lily simply didn't have time to date around - nor did she have any desire to find something serious anyways - and somehow, a few drinks later, it accidentally morphed into Lily going home with him.

They truthfully don't have a lot in common outside the bedroom, but in it, they're more than compatible.

And so from that one night, it's become somewhat of a series of regular mistakes. Once every few weeks or so, one of them owls the other, and the other shows up on their doorstep that night. There are no feelings involved whatsoever - it's just shagging, and that's all Lily really wants or needs right now. A way to release some tension, without any of the added strings or risk of heartbreak. He doesn't care, and she likes that.

He knocks on her door at nine on the dot, and she doesn't even bother with a hello before grabbing him by the shirt collar and pressing her lips to his.

Benjy doesn't complain. They don't have much to talk about anyways.

Somehow, this is exactly what Lily needs. She'd sent a message to Benjy before that second run-in with James, but even if she hadn't, she certainly would've sent it afterwards. Sex isn't, perhaps, the healthiest option as an outlet for her frustrations, but it's probably better than drugs or drinking herself into a stupor, so she contents herself with the knowledge that she could be doing far worse.

And then Benjy slides his hand down her pants and all thoughts of what might or might not qualify as a 'healthy' coping mechanism goes straight out the window.

They stumble into her bedroom, leaving a trail of haphazardly discarded clothes in their wake. They fall into bed with a practiced ease, hands and mouths wandering with few real words exchanged.

She rides him until they're both cursing incoherently, and Lily's barely come down from her own high when she rolls off of him, standing up from the bed and going into the bathroom.

They do this every time - someone flees the scene and puts distance between the two of them almost immediately after they fuck. Lingering too long in the aftermath, letting the intimacy of the situation wash over them, is something both parties are keen on avoiding. It's probably why they've made it so far without either of them developing feelings - there's a clear delineation that what they're doing here is just sex, never making love.

In the harshly bright light of her bathroom, she can see the imprint of where Benjy's fingertips dug into her hips, sure to leave a bruise tomorrow. Neither of them are exactly gentle when they fuck - she's quite positive Benjy has marks of his own from her own hands.

It had surprised her, the first time, because she'd always known Benjy as this awkward, bumbling teenager - the rough, confident man she'd been acquainted with in her bedroom felt like a completely different person than the one she'd once known. But then again, she supposes it would be just as much of a shock for anyone else to learn that the sweet, teacher's pet Head Girl at Hogwarts is exactly the same.

Although she's not sure anyone would call her 'sweet' at all anymore.

When she steps out of the bathroom, her dressing gown on but left unfastened, Benjy is sitting on the edge of her bed, buttoning his shirt back up.

"You know you're allowed to talk about what's got you so upset," he comments dryly, not even looking up at her. "Just because this is a no-feelings-attached sort of thing doesn't mean we're not allowed to exchange any words ever."

She wraps her dressing gown around her and crosses her arms, more self-conscious of the way he's read her emotions than she is of her naked body. "What makes you think I'm upset about something?"

He shrugs. "Just a hunch."

She sighs. He's actually one of the few people who there's no harm in ranting to, so she figures she might as well vent to him a little bit instead of lying her way out. "James Potter is now with Puddlemere, and his first day was today."

A look of recognition crosses Benjy's features. "Ah, he was in your year, wasn't he? Turned into a bit of a twat after graduation though, it seems like."

Lily thinks back to her interactions with James today, thinks back to that devilish smirk of his that won't stop haunting her thoughts. "More than just a bit of a twat, really," she replies, sinking into the armchair in the corner of her room.

"Didn't he have a thing for you when we were in school too?"

She laughs, instantly aware of just how much Benjy missed in the timeline of her and James by only seeing up to the end of fifth year. "For a while, yeah," she answers. "But then we were really good friends for a while too, all the way up until we graduated and he got too infatuated with fame and wild parties and fucking every girl he laid eyes on to care about anyone he went to school with."

Her words come out with such unexpected vitriol that Benjy cringes, but that doesn't stop her from finishing. "And he was just… god, he was acting like such a self-entitled prick today. Like… like there was nothing wrong with how he left things, like he never loved me, or anyone, or anything, from before."

Benjy finally looks up at her, fully clothed now, and gives her an appraising look. "So you're hurt."

"I'm not hurt, I'm pissed off," she answers defensively.

He scoffs. "Sure, whatever you say," he replies, clearly not believing her. "I think you've just decided to mask your real feelings with anger because being angry gives you a protective shell, but that's just me."

He shrugs casually, like he hasn't just thrown an incisive analysis of her emotional state at her like a knife to the chest.

She can't figure out how to respond to that, and as a result just gapes at him as he stands up, fixes his hair, and walks to her bedroom door.

"This was fun," he says, and leaves it at that as he first exits her bedroom and then, based on the sound of her front door opening and closing, exits her entire flat as well.

Lily just sits there, knees curled to her chest, trying to fight off Benjy's words. She doesn't give enough of a damn about James Potter anymore to be hurt by him. She doesn't want to be his friend anymore, doesn't want anything to do with him really, so why would she be hurt by him acting like he doesn't know her?

Benjy's wrong - there's nothing more to this than cold, hard fury.

She's angry that he's been able to turn into this horrible sort of person and face no consequences for it. She's angry that he's a complete prick and still one of the most successful up-and-coming players in the League, his athletic skill kept completely separate from his behaviour off the pitch. She's angry that she has to put up with his arrogance again, with none of the gentleness of his nature that she'd once grown attached to.

And that's all there is to it.

 

---

 

The first full-team practice comes the following afternoon, and it naturally finds Lily on her broom, weaving through the players and barking out orders.

She's comfortable here - despite the sense of constantly feeling like she has to prove that she belongs, it's undeniable that she's well-suited for coaching. Her notes from the scrimmage match have been etched into her memory, and she's making sure to bring them up whenever she can.

She earns herself an approving nod from Harrison as she makes a comment on Corinne's dodging.

Beyond her boss, she catches another set of eyes trained on her more than once during practice. James seems positively confounded by her field presence, but also sometimes just looks at her with intense interest.

The first time she comments on one of his shots, there's a brief moment where she's sure he's about to fall off his broom.

It lasts only half a second, and goes unnoticed by anyone else, but it's enough to make Lily laugh under her breath. If he's surprised that she's treating him just like every single other player on this pitch, he sure as hell better get used to it. She's turned keeping her personal feelings fenced off from her work into a fucking art form.

The practice goes on for nearly three hours - James's arrival to the team is so late in the off-season that there's a lot of catching-up required for them to be ready for the first match of the season in a month and a half. But regardless, they look good, and Harrison tells the team such when they all huddle together at the end of practice.

Lily's not on equipment duty today, so she goes straight into the locker room. She showers quickly, changing into yet another iteration of her go-to uniform of a sweatshirt and joggers, her hair instantly creating a wet spot on her back before she has a chance to use a drying spell on it.

"So," Mari says to Lily, as soon as Lily walks up to her locker to retrieve her bag, "got any exciting plans for the rest of your day?"

"Hardly," she replies. "You?"

"Other than dealing with two toddlers, which is always some form of excitement, nope," Mari answers. "I don't do exciting things anymore - I've got to live vicariously through the rest of you."

"Sorry to disappoint on that front, then."

Mari laughs at that, before zipping up her bag and telling Lily goodbye. Lily's just about to follow suit and leave, but she's interrupted just as she finishes getting all her stuff packed up.

"Hey, Evans," a voice behind her says, and she recognises its source before she's even fully turned around. "Can we talk?" His eyes shift to the other players still around them. "You know, catch up on our lives after Hogwarts like you suggested the other day?"

Fuck, she'd never expected James to actually hold her to that. And she's got a pretty good feeling that it's just a cover for something else that he wants to talk about instead. "Er, sure," she answers. "When?"

"How about now?"

She doesn't think 'no' is a valid option right now, given that she'd just been talking about not having anything else to do today, and there are still other people around them, undoubtedly eavesdropping on this conversation. As far as they know, she and James are nothing but casual acquaintances - rejecting his seemingly innocent offer would surely raise questions.

But even still, she doesn't even know why he wants to talk to her.

"Now works." She does her best to conceal the defeated resignation in her tone.

"Great," he says, flashing her a grin that she knows is entirely for show.

She throws her bag over her shoulder and follows him out of the locker room, not really knowing where they're going or what to expect.

Which means she's certainly not prepared for what happens next, which is James dragging her into a large storage closet and immediately casting a Muffliato on the door.

He turns to face her, arms crossed and an expectant look on his face. "Do you mind explaining to me what the fuck that was about?"

"What?" It takes more effort than she cares to admit to not let herself be distracted by the way his biceps flex against the fabric of his T-shirt.

"You calling me a self-absorbed prick and then just… fucking walking away. Where the hell did that come from?"

Is he… is he really that fucking dense? It's suddenly a hell of a lot easier not to focus on his body when he's being this much of a twat.

"You literally didn't even know I worked here," she replies, and her voice is soft, deadly. "You graduated Hogwarts and got sucked into Quidditch and just… what, decided to forget about everyone and everything from your school days?"

He scoffs. "Well forgive me for being surprised to see you for the first time in three years, at my new team's training facilities of all places."

"You're missing the point," she says, exasperation evident in her voice.

He cocks his head, challenging her to continue. "Which is?"

Instead of answering his question, she flips one back on him. "Why'd you lie about not being Head Boy to Harrison yesterday?"

"That doesn't answer my question. And I didn't lie."

"Well you certainly skirted the truth pretty hard," she retorts. "And I'm not answering your question, because if you really can't figure it out on your own, then you've become even thicker than I thought."

He doesn't budge. "Excuse me?"

"Tell me," she adds, unable to control the vitriol on the tip of her tongue, "what was it that killed all your brain cells - too many bludgers to the head or too many lines of dragonflame?"

Anger flashes in his eyes, but it doesn't last. He doesn't answer her either, and somehow that's finally the last straw. She's still not sure if he's playing dumb or has actually completely lost all sense of morality and self-awareness, but either way, she's fed up with it.

"You were so good for a while, you know," she snaps. "Got your ego in check, stopped acting like the entire fucking universe revolves around you... and then you go off and become a professional Quidditch player and stick your head right up your own ass again."

His hand flies up to his hair, and he leans against the door. "What are you even talking about, Evans?"

"Just because you didn't give a fuck what anyone else in your graduating class got up to after Hogwarts doesn't mean no one else did. I've seen the stories of what you get up to when you're not on the pitch."

He looks at her blankly, blinking a few times as he registers what she's said, and then his face twists into something darker, thunderous.

He takes a step towards her, so that she has to tilt her head up to look at him. "And you believed them? You believed what some trashy tabloids were printing about me over what you knew about me, the person you knew I was?"

She feels something twist in her stomach at his words and the implication behind them, the implication that the magazines may not have gotten the whole story, but she refuses to cower under his glare; she's not going to give him what he wants and take a step back. He keeps trying to do this, trying to intimidate her into backing off, and she's not going to let him.

"I don't know you anymore," she says simply.

He falters at that, something unreadable crossing his features. Eventually, he takes a step back again, shaking his head. "You always did look for the very worst in me, didn't you, Evans?" he mutters darkly.

That's absolutely not true - she's looked for the very best of him in times when it wasn't there, and been ruefully disappointed as a result. Looking for the worst in him just seems more likely to be the accurate conclusion at this point; he's got no right to be angry about that after everything.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I've had to look very hard."

She's baiting him, she knows that, but the verbal sparring is something she can't resist.

"Ah yes, because you're just an absolute bloody saint, right?" he says, and there's an unmistakable fury in his voice now. She's oddly pleased with that, with the fact that she's goaded him to her level. "Lily fucking Evans, judging the rest of us mere mortals from her massive high horse, because she's never made a single mistake in her entire life. And why bother with trying to separate fact from fiction in making those judgments, because she might as well just pick the worst version of the story and stick with it, yeah?"

A laugh bubbles from Lily's lips, sardonic and hollow. "I never claimed to be a saint, and trust me, I'm not. But I know a fuckboy when I see one, and you, my dear, have turned into the spitting image of one."

He just stares at her, his features hardened.

"You asked me why I called you a self-absorbed prick the other day," she says, her voice quieter now, "and the simple answer is that it's because you are one. You stopped giving a damn about me - about anyone - after we graduated, and next thing I know you're all over every tabloid getting trashed and fucking a new girl every night. Your reputation says everything I need to know to confirm that I'm right about you."

He throws his hands up in the air, and that's when Lily knows she's fully cracked him. "For fuck's sake, I worked my ass off for years to get to where I am - you really think so little of me that you think I'd just fucking throw all that out the window just so I could get fucked up every single night? Do you really fucking think I'm capable of doing all of that and still being able to play like I do? Because there's no way - you're a fucking assistant coach, you know what types of regimens we're held to, and you just… you know what? Fuck this. I don't owe you an explanation."

"You don't owe me an explanation?" she repeats back to him. "You don't owe me an explanation? Potter, you owed me like five explanations years ago. I can't believe you can't fucking see that."

"Maybe so, but I sure as hell don't owe you one now," he replies, stepping away from her once more. "Not when you're too busy making accusations to even listen anyways."

And with that, he turns the door handle and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him so that Lily's all alone in the darkness.

Of course he just left her in a fucking storage closet. That's just totally on brand for him at this point. He just flies away and leaves her on the cold, hard ground. Fucking classic.

She doesn't even bother leaving the closet to Apparate home, throwing her bag on the couch when she gets there with perhaps a little more force than necessary. She just… god, his inability to even acknowledge that he's turned into a totally different person since graduation, and that he's done some pretty fucked-up things since then, it's all just so infuriating.

He needs to learn to take responsibility for his own damn actions. Photographs can't lie. There's overwhelming evidence that he's exactly the person she said he is, regardless of his insistence to the contrary.

But her attention is quickly diverted from James and their argument when she notices that something came in through her mail slot - a glossy envelope addressed to a Calypso Selwyn.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, April 1978

If given a list of options of how to spend her Friday night, Professor Slughorn's monthly dinner parties would certainly not earn a spot anywhere near the top of her list.

It's not that she's got anything against the professor himself - she actually quite likes him, and he's positively enamoured with her and her potions talent - but the company he invites to these things is… well, most of them aren't really the type of people she'd ever like to grab coffee with after she graduates, despite how many times she's been invited to do so.

Especially the man she's currently talking to, whose name she's long forgotten at this point, but has taken to waxing poetic about his dragon handling experience to her. Which is a topic that she, truthfully, could not give fewer fucks about. And despite that, she's nodding along interestedly, asking questions that make him light up and go off on yet another tangent, and generally just being far more charitable towards him than she should be.

It's turned into a bit of a game at this point - seeing just how many times she can feign total fascination and how many of Slughorn's esteemed guests end up singing her praises to her professor by the end of the night. It's not like there's much else by the way of entertainment at these sorts of things.

She asks him a question that causes him to spark off into a long speech about Antipodean Opaleyes, and it's as he's speaking that she notices the headmaster lingering in the back of the room - which is surprising on its own given that she's never seen him at a Slug Club party before. What's even more alarming is that Dumbledore's eyes are trained on her.

She doesn't know what to make of that at all.

But she turns her attention back to the man in front of her instead of lingering on it too long. "It seems to me, then, that they're overclassified, aren't they? Out of a stigma towards dragons rather than an actual reflection of their danger level, yeah?"

The man - Ernest? Eustice? Earnhardt? - claps his hands together gleefully at her words. "Exactly!" he exclaims. "Your understanding of dragonkind is really excellent - are you sure I can't interest you in a career in dragon handling?"

Quite literally, over her dead body. She doesn't even have an O.W.L. in Care of Magical Creatures. "I suppose I'm not totally opposed," she lies easily.

"But she's got a much more promising career in Potions!" Slughorn appears out of nowhere at her side, jovially talking her up once again.

She once preened at his compliments of her potion-making abilities - brewing had been her ideal career path until she fell out of love with it somewhat in sixth year - but now she feels a sense of shame at his words. She doesn't know how she'll break it to him that she's actually no longer got any intention of following the path he thinks she's meant for.

"Lily, my girl," Slughorn says to her, "there's someone else I want you to meet. A good friend of mine, great Ministry connections…"

Lily looks over at… Eugene, maybe, and smiles. "It was a real pleasure to meet you, sir."

"And you as well, Miss Evans. If you ever change your mind about pursuing a career with dragons, send me an owl."

"Thank you," she replies, before being whisked off to yet another one of Slughorn's guests.

The night continues in much the same fashion, until Lily's game is no longer fun anymore, and her feet hurt, and she wants nothing more than to collapse in her four-poster for a long night's sleep.

And so she says her goodbyes, slipping out of the party and into the cool air of the Hogwarts castle.

She should probably go straight up to Gryffindor Tower - after all, her whole reason for leaving was to go to sleep - but she finds herself taking the long way up. There's something about the castle that's incredibly peaceful late at night, and she's well aware that her days left here are dwindling.

And so she wanders for a bit, content in her loneliness, until…

She stops in her tracks when she realises that Dumbledore is in the hallway as well.

"Miss Evans, what has you wandering the halls at this hour?" the headmaster asks, his tone betraying nothing but innocent curiosity.

But there has to be more to it, she's sure of that. He knows exactly why she's out and where she was - hell, he was there himself not too long ago. She made eye contact with the man in the middle of the party.

"Slughorn's party, sir."

"Ah, yes," he replies. "Horace so often tells me how much his guests are positively enamoured with you - you certainly know how to leave a lasting impression on those who see themselves as the upper echelon in wizarding society."

"Thank you?" she answers tentatively. She can't tell whether he means that as a compliment or what. Knowing the headmaster, he's almost certainly leading into something else.

"Walk with me, won't you?" he asks her. "I do love wandering the castle late at night - it's oh-so-peaceful, and a wonderful way to have a conversation without being… overheard."

She doesn't miss the way he scans the area around them as he talks, as if double-checking that they are, in fact, alone. He doesn't wait for her to answer him properly, just begins walking down the corridor with the expectation that she'll join him.

And she does.

"As I'm sure you've noticed," he begins, as soon as she catches up to him, "the faction of wizarding society that's fanatically obsessed with blood purity has grown increasingly restless over the past few years."

"I assume you're talking about the attacks on muggleborns, sir."

"I am indeed," he answers. "Although truth be told, their actions have been far more than just that. Under a more unified leadership than what they've got now, I imagine that the damage they could inflict would be… catastrophic."

"Like what happened with Grindelwald, you mean?" Lily asks, thinking of Dumbledore's past experience taking down the same sort of fanaticism.

The headmaster hums. "Yes, a bit like that, I imagine."

There's a brief lull in the conversation, wherein Lily doesn't really know what to say next, and Dumbledore doesn't seem to be making any moves to elaborate on anything.

Finally, Lily takes the bait, if only to avoid making the silence any more awkward. "So what does that have to do with me? Why are you telling me about it, sir?"

Dumbledore looks over at her with a twinkle in his eyes, and it tells her that Lily's said exactly what he wanted her to, set him up perfectly for where he's trying to lead the conversation.

"For the past few years, I've been developing… an underground army of sorts," he explains as they turn a corner. "A group of people - each with a very specific set of skills - who can keep an eye on things, stop whatever they can, and minimise the damage these supremacists are attempting to inflict."

"Would I know any of them?" she asks.

He hums. "When I say that the entire organization is underground, Miss Evans, I mean that it's underground even to its members. Even those on the inside of it don't know who else is involved. It's a… precaution of sorts - that way one set of loose lips can't take the entire group down."

"Oh."

"But to go back to your initial question, I'm telling you about this because I'd like you to join us - if you're willing to, that is."

Lily furrows her brow at that. "You said every person in the group is in there because they've got a specific set of skills."

"Indeed."

"Then what are you recruiting me for?"

Dumbledore laughs quietly. "I would've thought it rather obvious, Miss Evans, based on my earlier comments about your behaviour at Professor Slughorn's parties."

If possible, she's even more confused by that. "That his guests seem to like me?"

"You have a rather uniquely powerful ability to charm even the most disinterested person," he tells her, "even if you yourself have no interest either - that dragon handler tonight, for example, even though you never even took Care of Magical Creatures in the first place. I actually believe it was at the very bottom of your third year course sign-up list, if I'm not mistaken."

How the fuck does he remember that? Hell, she'd nearly forgotten she'd ranked it that low. "That's correct, sir."

"That sort of charm is exactly how you get secrets out of even the most tight-lipped of wizards. It's an impressive skill, being able to work your way into people's good graces so effortlessly, especially when it is… perhaps undeserved."

That should maybe sting a bit, but the thing is… she's inclined to agree with him. She doesn't really deserve the praise she gets from most of those people - she's just good at saying the right things to earn it.

"So how does that tie into your… group? What are you asking me to do?"

"I'm asking you to be a set of eyes on the inside," he replies simply, like it's the most natural sort of equivalence.

Lily, on the other hand, gives him a disbelieving look, not thinking it equal at all. "Sir, I'm a muggleborn. I hardly think I can work my way into a group of pureblood supremacists to spy on them when I'm the very type of person they're trying to kill off."

He just smiles at that, a bit of mischief in his eyes. "Who ever said you'd be going in as yourself?"

She just stares at him. "How?"

"That, Miss Evans, is a set of details I cannot share with you until I know you're committed to the task. I'm asking a lot of you - this isn't a decision you should take lightly, so I won't ask for an answer tonight. Take some time to think about it, and let me know when you've arrived at your decision."

And with that, he turns on his heel and walks the opposite direction, leaving her alone in the halls again, with a lot more on her mind than was there just a few minutes ago.

The next week, Mulciber puts Mary in the Hospital Wing and there's an attack on the Muggle village ten minutes from Lily's hometown, and she marches to the Headmaster's Office with her answer.

Chapter 5: you've gotta leave before you get left

The transformation from Lily Evans the muggleborn low-ranking Quidditch coach into Calypso Selwyn the pureblood socialite is one she's got down to a science.

The glamour charms are relatively simple - changing her hair from a rich auburn to a platinum blonde, her green eyes to a steely grey. The rest is accomplished with makeup; whereas Lily normally wears none of it, the thick layers of it that she puts on for parties transform her face entirely. The contour, the false lashes, and the dark lipstick all serve to make her reflection wholly unfamiliar to even herself.

And while her normal day-to-day uniform consists almost exclusively of athletic attire, her alter ego wears dazzling dress robes that leave few of her curves to the imagination.

She picks a bloodred one tonight, that sits just off her shoulders and dips delicately in the center of her chest. The fitted fabric glimmers with every movement like flames on her skin, in perfect complement to the crimson red paint on her lips.

It's her warpaint and her battle armour; and instead of spells and curses, her weapons of choice include her saccharine words, her quick wit, and of course, her body.

She's quite certain that, when Dumbledore first tapped her as a potential informant for the Order, his intention wasn't that she become some sort of coveted prize amongst pureblood supremacists. He'd probably be appalled to discover the truth of how she manages to provide him with all the information she does. But he's never questioned her strategies, and they have thus far proven incredibly effective.

It's a multifaceted sort of thing, the way she's able to do all of it so covertly, without raising any suspicions. The first is that she's a woman - and amidst blood status superiority complexes is also a deep-seated sexism, and therefore none of the pureblood chauvinists think themselves capable of being outwitted by a simple girl.

And because of that, they also don't care much what she's up to when she's not at these dinner parties and galas. No one has once asked Calypso Selwyn what she does during the day; so long as they get to touch her and trade flirtatious remarks with her every so often, they don't expect her to speak much or have any sort of humanity otherwise.

She'd hate that in any other situation, but it's ultimately to her advantage in this one.

The second is that she's impossibly careful to never allow herself to be the only other person in the room. She's able to pull this off under the guise of chastity - she may put her body out for show, but no respectable man will want to marry her if there's talk that she's already been the bedfellow of another, so of course she can't possibly let herself spend too much time alone with any of them. The whole concept is complete bullshit, given just how much the pureblood men themselves sleep around, but it's an effective cover.

If she's never the only person in the room, she'll never be the sole suspect if and when they eventually realise there's a spy in their ranks. Bad things happen when she's the only person in the room - she learned that lesson the hard way.

And finally, there's the fact that she's invariably really fucking good at what she does. Dumbledore had seen it in her at Slug Club, the way that she's able to charm her way through these tedious dinner parties, collecting information and goading secrets out into the open.

If anything, her skill in that regard has only improved in the three years she's been keeping this act up. In all that time, she's only fucked up once. And still, she made it out alive and with her cover intact.

So all in all, a pretty solid record.

The letter that came to her two nights ago was an invitation - the Malfoys are putting on yet another one of their elaborate dinner parties, this time celebrating the engagement of the eldest Malfoy to Narcissa Black, and of course, anyone within the Sacred Twenty-Eight is on the guest list for those.

She hates Malfoy Manor. She can't really put a finger on it, because it's no different than the other pureblood mansions that are ostentatiously decorated with crystal chandeliers and marble fireplaces, complete with house elves flitting around underfoot doing all the manual labour of the household, but something about the place unsettles her.

She Apparates to just outside the manor gates. They open for her almost immediately - she's got the dinner party invitation tucked into her dress robes, and the magical gates can sense that she's on the list of permitted attendees. From there, it's a decent walk up the path to the house, which somehow looks even more ominous than usual in the late evening darkness.

There's a calming sort of silence surrounding Lily as she walks up to the front door, and she uses it to collect her thoughts, to let herself fully slip into this character as she's done so many times before.

The door swings open before she even has a chance to knock, revealing none other than the patriarch of the manor himself, Abraxas Malfoy. He's apparently taken it upon himself to greet guests in the foyer, no doubt using the opportunity to boast about the manor to every new arrival. She's been through this before - the Malfoys love their shiny things, and they love any chance to draw attention to those shiny things even more.

"Calypso, a pleasure," he says, as soon as she crosses the threshold into the manor, extending his hand out to her. When she places her hand in his, he brings it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to her wrist. "Will your uncle be joining us tonight?"

He lets go of her hand and she lets it fall back to her side. "Not tonight, I'm afraid," she says, trying to sound sympathetic. "Still recovering from his last bout of dragon pox."

That's a bold-faced lie. Her 'uncle' isn't at home ill - Azibar Selwyn isn't even in the country. Hell, he probably isn't even anywhere in Europe anymore. The man hates his pureblood roots more than anyone Lily's ever known - including Sirius Black - and had been desperate for some sort of escape from them that wouldn't result in anyone being out for his head. And so he'd approached Dumbledore of all people, begging the man to help him get out without a trace - and Dumbledore had agreed, but for a price.

That price had been Lily.

Before he disappeared, he'd toted Lily to a few key pureblood events, introducing her to everyone as his niece who'd moved to live with him after finishing her schooling in Norway. Once Lily - Calypso - had become a fixture in the pureblood social scene, thereby cementing her role as an informant for the Order, Azibar left the country, his absence completely unknown to anyone but Lily and Dumbledore himself.

He'd also left her with a rather impressive collection of vintage dress robes, citing that they'd stayed in the family for ages and he could care less about them. It's not like he'd had any daughters to pass them onto or anything of the sort.

She's made a number of alterations on the old-fashioned robes so that they better suit her own needs, but they were an incredibly useful starting point.

"That's unfortunate," Abraxas replies, although she doubts he actually misses Azibar's presence. The man has been gone for two years, after all, and no one has really thought twice of it. "Tell him I send my well wishes."

"Of course." She nods at Abraxas, before walking further into the manor, towards the sound of conversations and soft music.

She scans the room as soon as she steps into it, taking stock of who's here tonight. It's a lot of the usual suspects - the Averys, the Blacks, the Rosiers, the Yaxleys, and, of course, the Malfoys themselves. She finds the guests of honour easily - Narcissa is draped off Lucius' arm, clad in silver dress robes that nearly match her hair, while her fiancé is deep in conversation in Rabastan Lestrange.

Both of those two men are trouble, she knows that. She adds Rabastan to her mental list of people to linger around this evening - the sneer on his face as he talks to the Malfoy heir unsettles her, and she's long since learned that the conversations that appear the most unnerving to her are often the most informative.

"Champagne, Miss?" a house elf squeaks from below her, holding a tray of bubbling flutes above his head. She grabs a glass off the tray, and has to bite her tongue to hold back an automatic 'thank you.'

A Selwyn wouldn't talk to a house elf like that.

She takes a cautious sip of her drink before moving across the room. Most people here drink champagne (or wine, or whisky, or whatever really) like it's water, so she'd look quite out of place if she wasn't drinking anything at all, but letting herself get anything more than a little tipsy in this setting is asking for trouble. One little drunken slip could come at the cost of her life.

"Calypso, lovely to see you." Will Rosier appears at her side abruptly.

She resists the urge to groan. Rosier is, in all honesty, probably one of the tamest purebloods here - which would be a good thing normally, but is useless when the whole point of her presence here is overhearing dangerous plans.

But despite being utterly disinterested in some of the more violent tendencies of the other pureblood supremacists, he is fantastically interested in her.

"Will, a pleasure," she replies, faking a smile.

"I was wondering if you'd be making an appearance tonight."

She laughs, high and tinkling and nothing like her genuine laugh. "Since when have I ever missed an opportunity for a party?"

He smiles at her charitably. "Very true."

She's at these sorts of affairs nearly every time she's invited - the sole exception being the time that a match against Appleby had run late into the night and she'd been unable to get away in time. But otherwise, she's a relatively constant presence on the pureblood social scene.

"I was just on my way to congratulate the newly engaged couple," he continues. "Care to join me?"

He immediately offers her arm, not even considering the option that she'd say no.

Of course, she doesn't - she takes his arm and lets him lead the way to where Lucius and Narcissa are standing, still talking to Rabastan Lestrange and now joined by the other Lestrange brother, Rodolphus.

Her blood boils at the mere sight of Rodolphus - she knows he was involved in the torture of a Muggle couple and their magical daughter just a few weeks ago, she's heard him bragging about it at a party. But she has no evidence of it; there's nothing that she can give to Dumbledore that he can use, and so he continues to walk free.

It infuriates her, and makes her that much more set on making sure he does rot in Azkaban at some point. It's what he deserves.

She hadn't intended to make her way into this conversation while hanging on Will's arm, but she's here now, so she'll take it.

"Lucius, Narcissa, congratulations," Will says as he enters the conversation, nodding at them formally.

"Congratulations," Lily adds, smiling at the couple. "Narcissa, you're going to look positively stunning in white."

She nods, the faint smile on her face the perfect epitome of composure. "Thank you."

"We should be off to greet some new guests," Lucius says quickly, nearly tugging Narcissa along with him as he exits the newly-formed circle.

He'd made a move on her once, before he and Narcissa started courting, and still begrudges her slightly for rebuffing his advances.

She's happy to play the role of a pureblood supremacist to get information from their ranks, but dating one of them is a bridge too far.

She lets her arm fall from where it was still linked with Will's and turns her attention to the two Lestrange brothers.

"Rabastan, how good to see you," she says, leaning towards him just a little. "I heard you just got a promotion to Deputy Head in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, how brilliant. You must've been doing some really impressive work to make that happen."

Rabastan preens at her compliment, and Lily wants to laugh at how easy it is to get into his good graces.

Pureblood men are all narcissists; they love her because she indulges their self-obsessions. She plays them all like violins, and makes it look oh-so-easy.

And sure enough, by the end of the night, she's managed a dinner party invitation from the Lestranges and some important information about how Rodolphus plans to influence the upcoming Wizengamot trial of Amycus Carrow.

She'll put that new knowledge in a letter to Dumbledore, and he'll do whatever he needs to with it from there.

 

---

 

The next day brings ground training, and as Harrison is likely to do these days, he's put her in charge of running the thing so that he can focus on finalising their training schedule for the season.

As much as Lily loves air sessions, loves the feel of the wind in her hair as she shouts herself hoarse, she's got a strange soft spot for ground training sessions. Maybe because they give her flashbacks to her primary school years, where she'd done the beginner versions of this same type of training on her local football team.

She can still remember it vividly, those summer days with the sun beating down on them as they sprinted from one end of the field to the other. Lily would turn the same colour as her hair from the combination of exertion and sunburn, and she'd feel so wonderfully, gloriously alive. Giving up football was one of the things she'd been most upset about when going off to Hogwarts.

Of course, this is a significant step up from the grassy field at a community park. The conditioning room at the Puddlemere training facility is state-of-the-art, full of just about every type of weight and piece of training equipment a witch could dream up.

She's got the whole room set up for circuit training - the other assistants here are following her orders, and she's got every intention of working the team to the bone today. They've got tomorrow off to recover, after all, and this is what the pre-season is for - making them tougher than ever before.

The team slowly trickles in one by one, each person moving into a warmup of their own choice. James is the last to arrive, as usual, as he has been every single training session this week.

As soon as everyone's in the room, Lily tightens her ponytail and claps her hands together loudly, getting the whole team's attention in one fell swoop.

"Today's workout is circuit-style," she tells them. "The timer will run for a minute, then you'll have fifteen seconds to get to the next station before the buzzer will go off again. Once you've gone all the way around, you'll get a two-minute rest, before repeating everything three more times."

Her eyes fall on Gideon and Fabian, both of whom look vaguely horrified at this announcement. They've got a pretty good handle on how brutal Lily's training sessions can be when she wants them to be, and they've accurately predicted that she's got a rough one planned based on the structure alone.

She walks them through what to expect at each station - bench presses, squats, wall throws, footwork drills, weighted planks, and sprints, among other things. Every part about the workout is intentional, every part has a direct correlation to a skill the players need in the air. She takes pride in that, in the purposefulness of it all.

"Pick your starting station," she says at the end of her explanation, looking around the room. "First round begins in thirty seconds."

She waves her wand, and as expected, the magical timer starts its countdown. All the other assistants move to their assigned places as well, and at the first buzz, the whole thing kicks off like a well-oiled machine.

When she'd first started coaching, she'd held an incredibly foolish assumption that coaching was somehow a detached practice, that she'd just shout encouragement from the sidelines while the athletes did all the hard work.

It took approximately one day for her to realise that was not the case at all. It's not uncommon for her to find herself breathing just as hard as the athletes, what with bouncing between stations and adjusting weights between rounds and trying to shout out guidance the entire time.

And on a day like today, where for some reason the heat is on full-blast throughout the training facility, it doesn't take long until sweat is beading at her brow.

"Motherfucker," Ozzie swears loudly, as he walks by Lily to get to the footwork drill station. "Is there a reason the compound feels like the inside of a Chinese Fireball today?"

"If there is, I wasn't informed of it," she tells him, as soon as she finishes fixing the cones on the ground. Her baby hairs have taken to clinging to the side of her face, so she attempts to slick them back behind her ears as she moves to monitor a different station.

When she looks over at the other side of the room, James is peeling his sweat-soaked shirt off of his body, crumpling it into a ball, and throwing it across the room to where his water bottle is sitting. She follows it as it arcs through the air, and naturally, it hits its mark effortlessly.

Her eyes drift back over to James, and… fuck.

She's seen professional Quidditch player's bodies before. She's not a complete stranger to the fact that they're all in incredible shape - they have to be, that's part of the job. They've pretty much all got solid builds and well-defined muscles. Hell, there are six other players in the room right now, and all the blokes are shirtless at this point. This isn't new.

And somehow, here she is anyways, completely in awe by the way his abs are bloody glistening with sweat. The way his tanned skin reveals every little flex of the muscles underneath as he gets in position to start sprinting. He's so different from the somewhat-lanky boy of their Hogwarts years, and for some reason, it sends her heart into a rapid-fire rhythm that can't entirely be blamed on the workout.

Which is absolutely absurd, really. Because once again, this isn't anything she hasn't seen before.

The magical buzzer goes off, signaling the start of the next circuit, and Lily quickly redirects her focus to anything that isn't James before he - or anybody - can notice that she was staring at him.

It's a few rounds later, when Lily has taken to spotting the bench press, when James comes up to her station, wiping at the sweat on his brow before throwing the towel aside. He hasn't spoken to her much since the broom closet incident, only interacting with her when absolutely necessary for Quidditch purposes, and this seems to be a continuation of that trend. He doesn't try to make small talk while waiting for the buzzer, just gets into position on the bench, wrapping and unwrapping his fingers around the bar in a way that has Lily thinking of the other things he could probably do with those fingers.

Once again, the shrill noise of the buzzer is the thing that brings her back into sanity.

She gets into position to spot him - not that he really needs it, she observes, as soon as he lifts the barbell off the rack and pushes through the first rep with ease. She makes a mental note to up his weight on bench presses during the next round.

But of course, the lack of any real need for a spot means that her full attention really isn't needed, which leaves her mind free to wander. And naturally, that wandering very quickly settles itself on the very person she's meant to be spotting. His form is damn near perfect, which really shouldn't be a thing that makes him more attractive in her eyes but somehow does. This is the same boy who once struggled with throwing her over his shoulder while running from Filch, but now?

Well clearly, he could throw her around like a fucking ragdoll.

She burns that thought from her mind as soon as she possibly can, because honestly, she knows better than to let herself think things like that about him. She can admit he's fit - and unfairly so - but that's where the line stops. She shouldn't even entertain any sort of fantasy involving him.

It's been years since she's thought about him like that, with the small exception of that one dream the night before he started at Puddlemere, but that wasn't a conscious fantasy so it shouldn't count. She has no intention of picking up the habit again. She's clean now - she's not risking that.

She starts taking spotting a lot more seriously at that, even though it's not necessary and James continues to knock out reps like it's nothing, but at least it saves her from any more inexplicable and questionably not-appropriate-for-work thoughts. But the moment the buzzer goes off and James reracks the barbell, she knows she came to her senses too late. He saw the way she was looking at him.

"Something catch your eye, Evans?" he says quietly, a knowing smirk plastered all over his bloody face that she wants to smack off immediately.

She curses his smugness and her lapse of sanity in the same breath.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replies simply, turning her attention to adjusting weight on the bar so that he can't see her cheeks turning red.

"Suuuure." The word is long and drawn out, and likely accompanied by a cocky raise of an eyebrow that Lily can imagine but can't see. But before she can look up at him and confirm, he's moving to the next station, and Mari comes over to hers.

She throws her full attention towards Mari, because like hell is she giving James that same sort of self-satisfaction twice. He's incredibly fucking fit, but she's not going to fall at his fucking feet just because he's got a good body. She's not.

It's not intentional - or maybe yes, it is just a little intentional - but she always ends up switching the station she's working on before James gets to it, so she doesn't really see much of him for a while after that.

The break between the third and final rounds is the closest she gets to him, as she digs her water bottle out of her bag and uses a towel to wipe the sweat off of her face and he does the same just a few meters away.

And she can't tell for sure, but she feels like he's watching her. For someone who called her out on her own staring, he sure is being a real bloody hypocrite if her instinct is correct.

There's only one way to know for sure.

She thanks her lucky stars that she decided to wear one of the sports bras that makes her tits look incredible today, before pulling her shirt over her head, just as James takes a sip of water. And judging from the way he suddenly develops a coughing fit as she tosses the damp fabric on the floor, he was definitely watching.

Suddenly, the scoreboard is even.

It's so incredibly stupid, but somehow, she gets a powerful rush of satisfaction from it anyways. The fact that he's not the only one who's gotten fitter since Hogwarts, and that she's not the only one who's noticed. This shouldn't be a competition, but it is.

And she needs to win.

She needs to make sure he's fully aware of everything he missed out on. She needs that little, petty victory.

"Get in position for the final round!" she yells, turning her attention back to the thing she should be paying the most attention to right now. "Give it everything you've got - if you're not dragging yourself out of here after this, you're doing it wrong!"

And when the buzzer goes off and everything begins all over again, she's fully back in the moment, all non-Quidditch thoughts of James completely cleared from her mind.

Until, at least, the end of the workout, when all the players file out to shower and head home, and Lily and the remaining assistants grab their wands to get everything in the facility put back in its rightful place before they leave.

Lucas is the one who mentions the name first. "Potter made quick work, didn't he?"

"You're telling me," Lexie replies with a scoff.

Lily looks at both of them quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, just that yesterday's edition of Witch Weekly has some paparazzi shots of him from this weekend - he was out at one of the nightclubs in town apparently. And he had some girl on his arm the entire time, naturally," Lexie explains. "One of my friends was there, actually - said it looked like the two of them were about to shag right in the middle of the club at one point."

"I don't know what's more impressive - the fact that he's barely been here a full week and is already right back to pulling the same shit he did at Portree, or the fact that a reporter managed to find him here so quickly," Lucas adds.

Lily laughs hollowly, turning her attention to getting the weights properly racked. "God, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest."

Even as she keeps a relatively calm exterior, a brand-new flash of anger is burning through her veins. James had gotten so pissed off at her for daring to call him out on acting like some foolish party boy, as if she'd somehow gotten the story wrong, and then a few days later had gone out and done the exact same thing she'd called him out for.

He's such a fucking liar. He can say all the pretty - or not-so-pretty - words he wants to try and make her believe he's different, but it doesn't change the underlying truth. But she knew that, already, didn't she?

You can't ever trust a playboy.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, November 1977

She's really got no clue what circumstances led her to this exact point, what justification exists for the fact that she's squished into a tiny hidden alcove with the Head Boy, hiding from the caretaker.

All she knows is that she was walking down the hallway, largely minding her own business, when James appeared out of nowhere sounding an awful lot like he'd just been sprinting through the castle, deposited something in her hand, and breathlessly told her to throw it.

And she really has no good explanation for why she actually followed through on those instructions, but she does. Throwing the small, round object had almost immediately results in an explosion of gold, brown, and green, and the distant sound of the Hogwarts caretaker cursing loudly.

"Alright, Evans, run!"

"What?"

He sighs impatiently. "Please don't make me try to throw you over my shoulder again - we both know how well that went last time, and we need to get out of here before the smoke clears."

She doesn't need to be told again, and takes off in a run down the hall. James quickly catches up to her, thanks to his long legs, and they've rounded another corridor when James suddenly grabs her hand and pulls her with him as he disappears behind a tapestry.

As it turns out, there's a pretty decent-sized alcove behind it. Well, it would be decent-sized for a single person, at least - it's a little cramped with the both of them in it.

"That's a strange favourite colour, Evans," James says quietly, pulling a piece of parchment out of his back pocket.

"What?"

"The smoke pellet you threw - it's a new Zonko's model that's designed to explode in the favourite colour of the person who set it off. Except yours set off three colours at once, which is weird."

She's never really given much thought to her favourite colour. If someone had asked her, she'd probably rattle off something random, like the baby blue of her childhood bedroom or the red of Gryffindor Tower's curtains. But certainly, she never would've said that whatever came out of that smoke pellet was her favourite colour. She's not sure where that came from at all.

He mutters something and taps his wand against the parchment, and suddenly the page bursts to life. She's completely taken aback by it, watching in wonder as the parchment unfolds itself, showing… a map of some sort.

"Is that a map of Hogwarts?" she asks, instantly curious.

"I'll explain later," he whispers. "But Filch will be coming down this hall in approximately five seconds, so not now."

She wants to ask how he knows that with such certainty, but she doesn't say anything just yet. Especially because, as predicted, it's just a few seconds later when she hears the caretaker walking down the hall.

"You can't hide from me forever," Filch snarls. "Foolish students out of bed, causing ruckus in the corridors, ought to chain you up for this."

Lily is, for some reason, almost immediately aware of how close she is to James in this particular alcove. She didn't notice it before when they were talking, but now, as they're holding their breath and hoping that the caretaker doesn't think to pull back an old tapestry, there's nothing to distract from the fact that she's pressed up against his side, his arm braced on the wall behind her, effectively tucking her up under his shoulder.

The air is suddenly very, very warm.

Can he hear how fast her heart is beating? They're in complete silence otherwise, and the pounding of it is all that she can hear in her own ears.

James, for his part, is still studying the parchment in his hands, and Lily's eyes fall on a pair of footprints labelled 'Argus Filch' moving down the corridor. And sure enough, in the place he'd just passed over, are two other pairs bearing the names 'James Potter' and 'Lily Evans.'

After another minute of that, he finally breathes out a loud sigh of relief. "He's gone - we're in the clear."

Despite his words, neither of them make any attempt to move from their current position.

"So, care to explain this thing?" Lily asks, gesturing to the map.

James grins. "Oh yeah, this is a fun little piece of magic that the boys and I put together a few years back. Shows you the entire castle and everyone in it."

She looks back at it in wonderment. "You made this?"

"Er, yeah," he replies, and - is that a hint of bashfulness in his tone? James Potter never sounds bashful about anything - he's normally the first to brag about every little thing, a cheeky smirk on his face the whole time. "Technically, Remus did a lot of the more advanced charms work - my only real addition was the charm that makes it insult anyone who guesses the password wrong."

And then it hits her. "So this is how you all are so good at never getting caught!" she says, looking up into his eyes. "You've got an enchanted map keeping guard for you."

"That, and this," he replies, holding up his other arm; for the first time since he appeared out of nowhere, she notices he's got some sort of cloak hanging off of it.

She finds herself in awe of his possessions for the second time. "Is that a - ?"

"Invisibility Cloak, yeah," he finishes.

"You're really giving up all your secrets tonight, aren't you?"

"Not all of them." There's a flash of mischief in his eyes, bright and wild, and she wants to ask what else he's got up his sleeve, but he changes the subject before she gets a chance to. "So, what had you wandering the halls late at night?"

She shrugs. "Just wanted some fresh air and a break from work is all."

"Well, I suppose you got a little more of a break than you bargained for," he tells her, examining the space they're still crammed into. "And maybe a bit less fresh air."

Filch is long gone, so they've really got no reason to stay trapped in that small space anymore, and yet, neither of them has moved. And James is right - the air is pretty musty behind the tapestry.

"We're, er, free to go back now, right?" Lily asks, her eyes falling back to the parchment in his hands. "Since Filch is gone?"

James pulls his hand off the wall, running it through his hair. "Oh, yeah, I guess we are. Here - we can use the cloak to get back, since it's getting pretty close to curfew anyways."

He throws it over the both of them easily - the sensation is bizarre, because it feels like nothing more than having a blanket tossed over her head, but she knows objectively that she's entirely invisible to anyone else who may come across them now.

"Why didn't we - "

He finishes her sentence for her. "Use this to hide from Filch instead of running? Simple - there's just not as much of a thrill in that."

She bites back a laugh at the way that he's just... so very Gryffindor. Always needing the most exciting version of an escape plan is so perfectly on brand for him.

"Not to mention that you can kind of see our feet when there's more than one person under here - which doesn't work too well with Filch's cat, given that he's on eye-level with them."

He places his hand lightly between her shoulder blades and pulls the tapestry out of the way, as if to guide her out into the hallway. The sudden presence of his hand makes her shiver, and he's not even touching her anywhere that should set off that sort of reaction.

He notices the way she responds, his hand falling from her back as soon as they're both out from behind the tapestry. "Alright, Evans?"

"Yeah," she answers, covering up the real reason she shivered easily. "It's just a little drafty out here - I wasn't prepared for that."

"Well, let's get back to the common room where it's a little bit warmer then."

Being under the cloak necessitates that they walk closer together than they would otherwise - their shoulders brush constantly as they walk up the stairs, looking around for any evidence of teachers. Of course, being Head Boy and Girl, it wouldn't be too hard for them to have an excuse for being out past curfew, but Lily's not going to argue with their current position.

Just outside the common room, he tugs the cloak off the both of them, and the Fat Lady jumps.

"You always have a knack for appearing out of nowhere, boy," she admonishes, clutching her pearl necklace.

James smiles at her good-naturedly. "It's a talent of mine, I suppose. Haberdashery."

The portrait swings open at his utterance of the password, and they step into the common room - which yes, is a good bit warmer than the corridors were.

Once they're inside, she turns to him. "So, you never explained why I was throwing enchanted smoke pellets in the hallway."

"You never asked," he replies. "Thanks for that - by the way, would've taken up far too much of the very limited time we had to get out of there. But that was just a diversion… the real fun was on the other side of the castle."

"Let me guess - Sirius, Remus, and Peter."

The other three boys are lounging on the couches in front of the fire, having clearly returned from said expedition long before the two of them did.

"You'll see tomorrow morning," James answers cryptically, a sparkle in his eyes.

In the glowing golden light of the common room, his eyes are lit up behind his glasses, and there's colour in them that Lily's never really seen before. Gold, green, and brown, all perfectly intermixed into something deep and vibrant and lovely.

Suddenly, she knows exactly where her favourite colour comes from.

"I'm going to, ah, head up to bed," she says suddenly, feeling her cheeks warm at her abrupt revelation. "This was fun."

He tsks at her, the smirk on his face widening. "Our model Head Girl here, calling rulebreaking and sneaking around past curfew 'fun.' "

"The most fun I've ever had," she replies. "Goodnight, James."

"Night, Lily."

She walks up to her dormitory, mind reeling with the fact that she'd probably live this whole night over and over again if she could, and trying to figure out what the hell that says about her.

Chapter 6: for the first time i had something to lose

She's only just walked into the offices after practice when Harrison shoves a parcel into her hand.

"That's Potter's uniform," he tells her. "Go try to grab him before he leaves for the day so that he can try it on and make sure everything fits properly."

She could write a fifteen-inch essay on all the things she'd rather do than chase James Potter down to make him try on his Puddlemere United uniform, but she decides not to argue with Harrison on this. There are some things worth fighting for, and this isn't one of them.

"On it," she tells him, turning on her heel and heading back towards the locker rooms.

Finding James turns out to be almost too easy - he's just walking out of the locker room as she walks in.

"Potter," she says sharply, and he turns to face her. His hand jumps up to his still-wet hair, raking through it and splattering water droplets along the shoulders of his white shirt.

"Alright, Evans?"

An uninvited wave of nostalgia hits her at his response. The sound of his voice forming that one phrase he'd said countless times at school - to the point that she'd more or less associated it solely with him - brings about a sort of melancholy.

She tamps that reaction down immediately and holds the parcel out to him. "Harrison wants you to try on your uniform and confirm everything fits properly before you leave today."

He stares at it, at her stiffly outstretched arms, for a moment, like he's trying to calculate something.

"Great, yeah, I'll do that then." He takes his uniform from her hands and turns back to go into the locker room.

As he turns his back on her, she realises that she's pretty much stuck here until he comes out. So she lets her bag fall at her side and leans against the wall, watching as the last few players and staff trickle out of the locker room.

Her mind wanders while she waits - mentally ticking off the list of things she's got to accomplish when she gets home, the errands she needs to run in the next few days, and the things she needs to remember to put in a letter to Marlene and Dorcas.

"So do I need to get some official stamp of approval from you on this?" She looks up, ripped abruptly out of her own thoughts, to the sight of James in his uniform, looking at her expectantly before slowly turning around.

The whole thing fits perfectly - as it should, given it was made custom based on his measurements - so he's got no reason to ask for her opinion here. No reason, except the fact that he knows damn well what he's doing here, knows just how fitted those Quidditch trousers are. He's toying with her, teasing out the cracks in her composure the same way he's done before, preying on the fact that he knows she's attracted to him no matter how much she doesn't want to be.

She's not going to give him the satisfaction of showing it. "It's fine," she answers.

"Great," he replies. If he's disappointed by her lack of response, he doesn't show it.

But she's already annoyed, because the fact that he's just so confident in his own attractiveness just rubs her the wrong way. (Maybe hypocritically so, given her confidence in her own, but she can't be bothered to reckon with that right now.) He's so used to getting any girl that he wants - when he pulls this same shit on them as he's pulling on her right now, it works.

Those recent Witch Weekly photos are proof of that.

She shouldn't say it, she shouldn't pick a fight for no reason given that they're already not on great terms from the last one, but she can't resist. It would be a lie if she claimed that, as vexing as they may be, there's not a certain thrill that comes from picking fights with someone who can and will match her in temper and intensity.

"I heard you had some fun this weekend," she says casually, pushing herself off of her spot against the wall.

The muscle in his jaw clenches. "Oh, you did?" he replies, matching her tone.

"Yeah. Exactly all the things you got all offended over and claimed you weren't doing last time we talked."

He shakes his head. "No, I told you that the tabloids were telling lies - that's still true."

She gives him a disbelieving look. "Oh, so I'm just supposed to believe that photographic evidence is a lie?"

"Well it certainly doesn't tell the full story," he answers.

She scoffs at that. "Half of those pictures were almost inappropriate for a magazine - I'm surprised they didn't get a shot of you fucking that girl in the middle of the club, honestly. I don't know how much more thorough you can get with your storytelling than that."

He raises an eyebrow. "That's what you're going to fixate on? For fuck's sake, I'm allowed to hook up with people. That certainly won't affect my Quidditch playing, that should be the least of your concerns about whatever the fuck you want to think I'm doing all the time."

"Not when you're - " she sighs loudly in frustration, not knowing where she wants to go with that.

It's not that he sleeps around - because so does she, and she'd be a real hypocrite for refusing to acknowledge that one - but just… he goes through girls like they're all fucking disposable. And they're not.

(She's not.)

Anger flashes in his eyes, bright and burning. "Care to finish that sentence? Because from my perspective, I really don't think there's anything wrong with having a few one night stands - with people who don't want anything more than a one night stand, mind you - other than maybe not fitting your own moral standards. I'm a fucking adult who's allowed to make my own decisions, and so was she, so I really don't see the problem here."

"This isn't about my 'moral standards,' " she replies immediately.

He cuts off anything else she was about to say with a mocking laugh. "So are you jealous, Evans? Is that what it is?"

It takes every ounce of self-control for Lily not to slap his smug expression right off his face.

"You know, despite what you've let your ego convince yourself of, not everyone is just dying to kiss the ground you walk on," she says icily. "Trust me when I say I don't want you that way at all."

She expects him to refute that, to maybe even bring up last week's ground training session as evidence to his point, but instead, the arrogant look on his face fades entirely, replaced by a mask of expressionlessness. "Trust me, you've made that very obvious."

It takes her a moment to register his unexpected response. "Well… good."

"Now, if you're done criticising my life choices for whatever fucked-up reason you have for it, you can leave," he says coldly. "The uniform fits - your job here is done."

He walks back into the locker room, leaving Lily with the realisation that he's managed to have the last word - again.

Which frustrates her more than she cares to admit. It makes her feel like she's losing every single one of their arguments, and she doesn't like that feeling at all.

Especially when she's the one with the higher ground anyways.

If only he'd let her actually have it.

 

---

 

She has the day off the next day, and uses it to get some errands done that she's been putting off for a few days. One of them involves a trip to Flourish and Blotts for a particular potions theory book that none of the shops near Puddlemere have in stock.

While she's there, she decides to peruse some of the other sections of the shop, on the off chance that she finds something else interesting.

As it turns out, there's a book on famous Animagi in history that catches her eye, and she finds herself poking through it as she wanders down an aisle.

She doesn't notice him until it's too late, until they're practically colliding with one another and he stumbles backwards trying to get out of her way.

And then recognition flashes across his face, combined with a few other emotions that she can't quite place. He looks like he can't quite believe she's really there.

"Lily?"

"Sirius," she says, her voice strangely choked as she says his name. "Hi."

His eyes briefly wander over her - not in the creepy sort of way that a lot of people do, but more like he's sizing her up, gauging how much she's changed since the last time he saw her. It's fair enough; it's been a long time.

"I've gotta say," he responds after a moment, "running into you is quite a surprise."

"Yeah, same for you." She's usually good at moving through Diagon Alley without running into anyone she went to school with.

He looks different from how he did back then - his hair is shorter than it was, but now he's got the beginnings of a beard lining his jaw. And like James, he's filled out from when he was eighteen.

… Has she really not seen him since he was eighteen?

Sirius seems to be thinking about the same sort of things. "It's been a while - I mean, god, last time I saw you was… just a few months after we'd graduated, yeah?"

"That sounds about right, yeah," she replies, smiling weakly.

She's slightly embarrassed that it's been that long. She'd never really intentionally set out to cut Sirius, Remus, and Peter out of her life, but it seems that James was the glue that'd pieced together her friendship with the rest of them to begin with - and without him in her life, she just… well, she kind of drifted away.

An uncomfortable silence ensues as she thinks back to that day, and she's quite sure Sirius's thoughts have drifted there as well. "How have you been?" she asks, trying to distract from the sudden awkwardness.

"Pretty good, all things considered," he says, grinning. "I've got a gig at a motorcycle shop, you know, fixing up bikes and all that. Just about the most Muggle thing you could possibly do - repairing those things with nothing but tools and your own two hands - I imagine my dear old mum would just about have a fit if she knew."

Knowing Sirius's family history, she doesn't doubt it. And of course, it's so perfectly like Sirius to end up doing the very thing that he knows would most piss off his fanatical pureblood relatives.

"And what about you?" he asks. "What have you been up to for the past couple of years?"

"I'm on the coaching staff at Puddlemere."

Sirius lets out a low whistle. "Well shit, that explains it."

She cocks her head at him, confused by his nonsensical response. "Explains what?"

He laughs under his breath before answering. "Prongs has a… er, very specific mood when it comes to things involving you. Always did. So it was a bit weird to see it pop up randomly for the first time in three years."

Huh. She decides to prod him a bit further - it's the first she's ever heard of that, especially given… well, everything that happened between them three years ago. "What do you mean by a 'very specific mood'?"

"It's hard to explain, really," Sirius replies with a shrug. "There's just something about you that sets him off more than anything - or anyone - else."

"Oh," is all she manages in response.

That contradicts everything she knows about post-graduation James; he hasn't made any indication that he gives a damn about her, certainly not the way he did in school. Hell, he's still barely spoken a word to her that wasn't in response to her picking some sort of fight.

So it's strange, then, that she'd have any sort of hold on him at this point.

"How are Peter and Remus?" she asks him, trying to change the subject once again.

It works, diverting the conversation away from James entirely. "Pete's doing great. Got himself a job managing the Magical Menagerie just up the road from here, and a pretty serious girlfriend to boot. She's kind of perfect for him - and I'm pretty sure he's saving up for a ring at this point, so it's just a matter of time until they're married."

She'd never expected that, out of the four of them, Peter would be the first to settle down.

But a lot can change in three years, and she supposes this is just yet another one of those things.

"And Remus," he continues, "Remus is good. He's doing some archiving work with Bathilda Bagshot, and, er, we just bought a house together just outside of London."

Based on the way his cheeks colour, she assumes there's more to his current situation with Remus than just 'buying a house.'

"Buying a house together," she says casually. "That seems like a pretty big commitment."

He laughs. "Ah yeah, I suppose it is. It just kind of seemed like the next step given that we've been together for almost three years now."

And there's the zinger.

She smiles - a genuine one, not just one born out of politeness. "I'm really happy for you two."

"Thanks," Sirius replies, ruffling his hair in a way that immediately reminds her of James. "We're really happy too."

She's reminded of just how similar the two boys can be sometimes - in mannerisms, in attitude, in unconscious habits. They've been inseparable since 11 and practically brothers since 16, so it makes sense.

There's a long lull in the conversation - awkward and heavy, as the two of them equally grapple with where to go next.

Sirius breaks it first. "What happened to all of us? Why has it been three years?"

She shrugs, unable to come up with a real answer. "I guess we fell apart in the usual way."

"We should change that. You should come over sometime, for dinner or something," he says. "I'm sure Remus would love to see you."

She's kind of baffled by the invitation, honestly. From the way he's talked, it seems he's not entirely unaware of the fact that she and James haven't exactly been civil recently, and she would've thought he'd immediately side with James - and only James - on everything.

Of course, it's entirely possible that he's just extending the invitation out of politeness while they're talking, and has absolutely no intention of following through with it.

"That would be lovely," she finds herself responding automatically. It's not a lie - catching up with Remus would be lovely, as would seeing Sirius again and making an effort to keep up with them more, but she's just not fully convinced they care enough to actually turn this theoretical invitation into a real one.

"Great, I'll talk to Remus and we can figure out a day that works for all of us," he replies, grinning. "And I promise, James won't be there."

Her eyes go wide. Honestly, she hadn't even been thinking about that as a possibility. But it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility that a casual dinner with old friends would also involve James, so she's kind of grateful for the disclaimer. They haven't been able to peacefully coexist in the same room together for more than a few minutes outside of Quidditch practices, so she really can't imagine a scenario in which a group dinner doesn't end with her pouring a drink over his head.

"That's… good," she says tentatively.

"I just wanted to make sure we were clear on that." Sirius looks mildly entertained by her reaction. "Merlin knows we all tried to play matchmaker for the two of you one too many times at Hogwarts, so expecting that we'd sic Prongs on you for dinner with no warning would've been a totally fair suspicion. But we've grown past that one now, I think - if anything is ever going to happen between the two of you, it's going to have to happen without any outside intervention."

Lily resists the natural urge to scoff at that. 'If anything is going to happen' implies that there's even the tiniest chance of something romantic sparking between the two of them, and while Lily can accept that she's physically attracted to him, she's damn sure there's nothing emotional there anymore.

Nor will there ever be - not when he's shown his true colours to her loud and clear.

"Well, thank you for the clarification," she eventually responds. "And I look forward to hearing from the two of you."

Her response is stilted, unnecessarily formal. She nearly cringes at that, but it's too late to restructure her words into something warmer.

She's just about to turn and walk away - she can come back to this aisle later, when it's free of old friends and awkward conversations, but Sirius speaks again as soon as her back's to him.

"Oh, and Lily?"

She turns.

"It's just… James really isn't as bad as what everyone makes him out to be. You don't have to, but… if you hear him out, I promise things start to make more sense."

Lily just nods at that. "Okay."

And then Sirius is the one walking away, and she's left weighing his words in her mind. She's not sure how much stock she wants to put in them, but somehow, she can't help but start to believe them.

 

---

 

The wizarding town of Puddlemere is a pretty small one - there's a fairly limited number of shops along the main street, featuring only the necessities. Lily loves the quaintness of it all, even though it does feel a bit claustrophobic at times, particularly when all the shopkeepers know her by name and have her shopping habits memorised.

There's a distinct advantage to that sometimes though, and one such instance is at Billywig Books and Brews, the tiny bookstore-slash-tea-shop at the very edge of the main street. It's one of her most frequent haunts - other than the Puddlemere training facility, of course - because it's so secluded and solitary, and sometimes she can really think of nothing better than the idea of spending a whole afternoon lost in a book while sipping hot tea out of one of the café's many mismatched mugs.

And after a particularly messy session with the Beaters, she can think of no better way to spend the rest of her day.

The little bell dings above her head as she walks in, and the herbs-and-parchment scent of the shop overwhelms her senses. It's inexplicably calming, which is exactly what she needs right now.

She makes a beeline for the back - there are little tables all throughout the shop, but her favourite one is positioned so far away from everything that hardly anyone thinks to go looking for it. Even Lily only found it by complete accident; but it quickly became her spot, because of its seclusion, because the lighting there is the best of anywhere in the shop, and because it's never taken, no matter how busy the rest of the shop may be.

Which makes the sight she's greeted with that much more surprising.

Her prize table is occupied, which is a shock in and of itself because no one usually likes sitting all the way back here, but what's even more shocking is the person occupying it.

James. Reading some massive and presumably dense text about Merlin knows what, biting his lip in concentration as he reads.

He looks up at the sudden arrival of another person in the back room, clearly of the same mind as her that no one comes back here. When he sees her, he raises an eyebrow skeptically.

"Can I help you?"

"You're at my table," she blurts out.

He seems largely unphased by her response. "I wasn't aware any of these tables belonged to anyone."

"I - they don't," she answers. "I just… no one usually comes back to this one."

"Yeah, well, I generally find that secluded back corners are the only safe place to be. As you said yourself, no one usually comes back to them."

There's a definite note of bitterness in his voice that betrays something deeper than the casual way he's trying to pass off his comment.

"You're hiding?"

"I usually am," he answers.

She could turn around and find a different table, but for some reason, she doesn't want to. "Mind if I join?" she asks, more than partway sure that he's going to immediately shoot her down and tell her to leave him alone.

It's funny, in a way, because sharing a table to study is something they used to do all the time, and there was never any hesitancy or awkwardness to it at all. But that was back when he fit in her poems like a perfect rhyme; now, it seems like they're perpetually cacophonous and off-rhythm.

He doesn't shoot her down though. "Uh, sure," is his answer, and that's good enough for her.

She sits down, pulling out the book she'd bought from Diagon Alley earlier this week and perfectly prepared to just spend her time reading in silence. She doesn't need to talk to her tablemate.

And yet… part of her wants to. Whether she likes it or not, Sirius' words have been bouncing around in her mind.

Even if she has her suspicions, she might as well at least attempt to hear James out. She doubts he'll actually be able to exonerate himself, but there's no harm in listening to him, if only so he can stop accusing her of not doing so.

"I have a question," she says after a few minutes, breaking the settled silence between the two of them.

James doesn't answer, just looks up from his book and raises an eyebrow skeptically. She supposes she deserves that suspicion - most conversations that she's initiated with him over the past few weeks haven't exactly ended well.

"So it's… it's not true then, the story the magazines have been telling about you over the years?"

He laughs, but it's a hollow one, like he's heard this a million times before. "Not in the slightest, Evans."

 

---

 

Seventh Year, January 1978

She can't sleep.

It's horribly unfair, really, that the first opportunity she's had all week to get more than five hours of sleep is interrupted by her waking up at 3 a.m. and not being able to fall back asleep.

This finds her in the common room in the early hours of the morning, curled up in an armchair and mindlessly flipping through a book she's read so many times she could practically recite it by heart.

There's a peaceful sort of quiet to the common room at this hour. It's almost always full of movement and life throughout the day, so it's a strange sight to see it completely emptied of students, the only evidence of their presence being the various belongings they've discarded or left behind - a stray quill here, a cardigan draped over a chair there. She lets herself bask in the utter lack of activity, eyes closing for just a moment in contemplative silence.

She nearly jumps when she hears the portrait door swing open, destroying the stillness of the room. She's hidden from view, massive as the chair she's sitting in is, but she can see clearly as three boys materialise out of thin air.

And, of course, who else to be three boys sneaking into the common room just before the break of dawn than James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew.

"Really, I would've thought after seven years of sneaking around, you would've realised you shouldn't take the Cloak off until you're all the way to the dormitory," she comments, shifting position so that they can see her.

Three heads whip her way at once, all in various stages of surprise.

Sirius recovers from the shock first, smirking at her. "See, we've tried that one, Evans, and the simple fact of the matter is that those staircases simply are not wide enough for three blokes under a cloak. It worked when we were 11… not so much now."

He makes a good point there. It's honestly a miracle of itself that the three of them can fit under it at the same time at all.

"What exactly were you doing out at this hour anyways?" Lily asks.

James pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Just a quick late-night kitchen run, that's all."

"Bullshit," she replies immediately, because she's been down here for over two hours now and she definitely would've noticed them leaving if they'd actually just gone to the kitchens. She looks at them for a bit, taking in the fact that they all look slightly mangled, and there's definitely… that's a leaf in James' hair. "You lot snuck into the Forest, didn't you?"

And then she thinks of something else. "Oh my god, Remus," she breathes softly, before raising her voice again. "What the fuck were you lot doing gallivanting around in the woods on a full moon?"

Sirius just blinks at her and plays dumb. "What does that have to do with Remus?"

She levels him with a glare that he at least has the sense to shrink back from. "You know exactly what it has to do with Remus. I know what he is - and before you ask, no, I don't care, because it doesn't change who he is. What I do care about, however, is the fact that all of you were stupid enough to be outside when you know full well he has no control over himself - honestly, what were you even thinking?"

The three boys all exchange looks - there's some unspoken conversation going on between all of them in the form of nods, raised eyebrows, and facial expressions that Lily can't even begin to follow, but it seems to come to a conclusion when Sirius and Peter start walking up to the dormitory, leaving just James.

He takes a seat on the couch next to her, and the pale golden glow of the fire in front of them makes the thin scratches zigzagging down his arms and hands even more apparent.

Staring at those marks, she starts to feel her anger subside - and vaguely, she's aware that it wasn't really anger to begin with. It was fear.

She's actually scared at the thought of losing him. And it's a weird thing to think about - realising that for the first time, he's even something she could lose.

His voice is unsteady when he speaks. "We wanted to do whatever we could to help him."

"At the risk of your own lives though? He's not himself, and a werewolf attack could kill you, or - "

"We're not - " he pauses and looks at her seriously. "I'm going to tell you something, but it's - I'm putting my ass on the line, and Sirius's and Peter's as well, so I need to… I need you to promise that you'll keep this secret for us. This is a hell of a lot bigger than the map and the cloak."

She feels a knot of uncertainty in her stomach at that - being asked to keep a secret before she even knows what it is… that's a lot to ask of her. But then again, it's James, and she can't help but inherently trust him. Whatever secret he's got is something worth keeping.

"As long as this secret of yours isn't putting anyone in danger, I can keep it."

For some odd reason, James smiles wryly at that. "Define danger," he says playfully, before quickly turning stoic again when she gives him another look. "No, but really, it's not - no one's in any real danger other than, well," he gestures at the scratches on his arms as a means of finishing that sentence.

She doesn't say anything to him at that, just nods to get him to continue.

"Remus's transformations are bad. I mean, werewolf transformations are always bad, but Remus is always boarded up in the Shrieking Shack, and when the wolf has nowhere to run and nothing to take out its aggression on… well, it goes after Remus. He would be so fucked up after the full moon, and so we - me, Sirius, and Peter - decided we'd do whatever we could to help him. And so we… did."

He ruffles his hair nervously. "Fuck, there's not really a delicate way of phrasing this, you know? We're Animagi. Completely unregistered of course, but... animals aren't affected by werewolf bites the way humans are, so the three of us are able to keep Remus company and keep him from hurting himself."

Of all the things she might've expected James to confess to her, the fact that he's apparently an illegal Animagus was absolutely not one of them. She's not entirely sure she believes it, honestly - how the hell could they have even managed that level of advanced magic?

"You're… an unregistered Animagus," she repeats back to him, a bit dumbfounded. "For how long?"

"Well, we'd been trying to get the transformation down since third year, but it wasn't until fifth when we finally all managed it."

She half-expects that this is the point he admits he's joking, face splitting into a maniacal grin as he laughs at the fact that she fell for it, but the mix of sincerity and concern on his face tells her that he's being totally serious. "That's - James, that's incredibly advanced magic. You managed it at sixteen?"

"Technically I was still fifteen, but yeah," he replies.

She's got an instinct to tell him off for showing off for her, but the look in his eyes is a deadly serious one, and she realises that he's not saying that for her benefit. It's just… a simple fact. This isn't something he did for the sake of bragging about it or showing off - he just did it because his friend needed him.

She shouldn't be surprised - she's spent a lot of this year learning and that James is a lot different than how she's always thought of him.

So her curiosity takes a different turn. "What do you turn into?"

"A stag."

She can't explain why, but that seems to fit him.

"And the others?"

"Sirius is a dog, Peter's a rat," he answers. "Dead useful combination, really."

She decides that it's maybe not in her best interest to ask why exactly that's a useful combination. She's already learned enough about how they're all risking their lives on a regular basis and really doesn't need anything else adding to that right about now.

"That's… wow."

James shrugs. "We did what we needed to do."

She's not sure she knows anyone else who would go to those sorts of lengths for their friend. What they're doing for Remus is above and beyond, and if she didn't already firmly believe in how good these boys are, this might've done it for her.

"It's still incredible," she tells him.

"So you'll keep it a secret? You won't tell anyone? Since, you know, we're not actually putting anyone in danger?" There's an earnest look on his face that suggests he's really desperate for verification, even though she's already made this promise once before.

And she doesn't even have to think twice about making it again. "On my honour, your secret's safe with me."

He visibly relaxes. "Thank you."

"Anytime."

It's only then that Lily notices their proximity, the way his thigh is pressed against hers and his face so close to hers that she can see it in clear detail even in the low light of the common room, and she instantly feels her face heat up. She's not sure why the discovery elicits that sort of reaction - and decides to file that under things she'll think about when she's not completely exhausted.

James doesn't seem to notice the blush on her cheeks, but he does notice the time. "Well, it's staggeringly late, I should get to bed. You should too, for that matter."

It takes her a moment to realise the emphasis in his previous sentence. "Was that… was that a deer pun?"

He smirks. "Maybe it was. Goodnight, Evans."

He's halfway to the stairs before she remembers to reply with a, "Goodnight, Potter."

And he's all the way up the stairs when she notices that his scarf is still sitting on the table in front of them. She's not sure when he took it off, but it's definitely his - there's still a twig stuck in the fringe to prove it.

After staring at it for a while, she decides she should take his advice and try to go to back to sleep again. But before she does that, she grabs a piece of parchment and a quill, jotting something down.

She leaves his scarf outside his dormitory door before going up to her own room. When he wakes up, he'll find it, pick it up, and see the note she left pinned on it.

Oh deer, I think you forgot this in the common room. - Lily

Chapter 7: all love ever does is break and burn and end

"Tell me the truth then."

He looks over at her, an eyebrow raised in skepticism. Clearly, that was the last thing he'd expected her to say.

"You told me I was making too many assumptions and not bothering to get the true story," she explains. "So here I am, asking for it. Tell me the true story."

The silence hangs over them for a long moment, and then something about it shifts.

She's not sure it's possible to feel someone's walls break down, but something palpable shifts in the air between them with her words. It's all subtle things - his shoulders slump forward slightly, his facial expression softens - but for the first time since she ran into him in the Puddlemere hallway, he looks so much more like the boyish seventh-year James she knew than the professional Quidditch player one. No longer does it feel like he's so far above her in every sense, so far above feeling anything - now, it feels like he's finally right beside her again.

He doesn't meet her eyes when he begins to answer. "My parents died - in the middle of my first season."

Lily feels her heart drop into her stomach. She'd known about his parents' passing, had read about it in the Prophet when it happened, but hearing the rawness with which the words come out of James' mouth evokes something different entirely.

"I'm sorry," she says sincerely. For whatever ill feelings she may have towards him, the immense pain of losing a parent is something she can sympathise with.

"And I - it kind of feels ridiculous now, but I just… in the aftermath of it, I felt so alone. Here I was, this up-and-coming Quidditch player who was supposed to be having the time of his life as all the things I'd dreamed about for years started coming true and I was living this fantasy life that most people can only ever imagine, and instead I was so consumed by all this grief and sadness about losing two people who meant the world to me, and then I felt guilty about feeling all of that, and eventually I just… I shut down."

He drops his head down, running both of his hands through his hair at once. He still won't look at her. "I went to this really dark place mentally, and eventually… I don't know. The season ended and I suddenly didn't have Quidditch to channel all my energy into anymore, so I… found other things. Other ways to distract myself and make myself forget about everything I couldn't quite handle. I went on a bender, if you can even call it that, just getting fucked up out of my mind at all hours of the day when I didn't have to be at practice. It didn't last all that long - that first Witch Weekly article came out and Sirius and Remus and Peter all immediately realised something was wrong and intervened before I did anything to truly fuck myself up, but by then, the damage was done as far as the press was concerned. I'm sure you saw that."

"Yeah… I did," she replies. She knows the specific Witch Weekly article he's talking about - she remembers staring at it in horror for the longest time, the boy in the pictures feeling both familiar and like a complete stranger all at once. It had gone in the box with everything else related to him after that, and now, it's nothing but a pile of ash.

He looks up, but still not at her. He's looking past her almost - at the bookshelf behind her rather than at her face. "The storyline the gossip columnists had gone with wasn't really the truth, but it was… well, at the time, my agent and I decided it was better than the truth."

His lips curve into a wry smile, but it doesn't meet his eyes. "Having a reputation as this edgy 'bad boy' was better than being some lonely little kid who couldn't figure out how to process his own grief in a healthy way - at least in the eyes of the industry and the fans and any potential sponsors. So we went with it - hell, for a while there, I was even staging things that I knew the gossip magazines would jump all over, because… I don't know, having that image and that sort of attention seemed cool and made me feel like I was finally regaining control of my life again."

He laughs bitterly, a sharp sound that startles Lily a little bit.

"But… god, I wish I knew back then what I was getting myself into. This whole fucking persona I created has a life of its own now - I can't do anything without it somehow being twisted to that fucked-up version of me. And I mean, sure, I go out to a club every so often and I do the things that literally every other person does when they're out at clubs, but that's not… that's not who I am. That's not the only thing I do, and I don't even do it that much, and I just… I'm so fucking sick of people thinking that's the only interesting part of me."

He looks at her now, and there's something deadly in his eyes. "Everyone thinks they know me now, thinks they know exactly what I'm like, and not many people bother to look past that reputation anymore."

The deadliness disintegrates, and suddenly, it doesn't seem like there's much of anything behind his eyes. Lily can't remember ever seeing his constantly expressive eyes so lifeless. "And then for you… someone who I was so close to for so long, someone who knew the real me so well - the person I was before any of this happened - to also buy into that new version of me, it just… this is just who I am now, I guess. The person I was before is dead."

He takes a deep breath, and Lily can tell he's done talking now. Now it's her turn to say something.

But truthfully, she's still processing it all. She's not sure how much of it she believes - how much of it she wants to believe. She knows there's a deeper reason for that resistance. James hasn't really given her any reason not to believe him now, and he seems so honest and genuine, but believing his story unquestioningly requires upending everything she's thought about him for the past three years, and she's not sure she can drop those convictions that easily.

At least when she believed everything she'd read about him, she had an explanation for why he'd suddenly decided to pretend she didn't exist anymore.

Knowing that he might still be the same James underneath it all, that the parts of him she'd once adored haven't fully disintegrated, that his heart is still completely intact after breaking hers… somehow, that might actually make things worse. The idea that him leaving her behind is some wholly independent event and not just a part of some bigger trend threatens to break down so many of the justifications she'd given herself for him leaving like he did. And she doesn't want that wound reopening again - she can't let it open again.

But his hazel eyes are staring at her like they're trying to reach into the very depths of her soul, and she can't have him getting at anything buried that deep either, so she responds with her best attempt at a platitude.

"I'm sorry. You don't deserve that."

He shrugs, looking away again. "Or maybe I do."

It's the first time she realises that maybe he hates what he's become just as much as she does.

 

---

 

Rather than allowing herself to ruminate on anything about her conversation on Wednesday at the café with James too deeply, Lily spends the next few days in constant search of a distraction. It's helped along by an owl tapping at her window, giving her a time and a place and a familiar signature.

Lily bounces on her toes while waiting outside Benjy's front door, trying to keep warm amidst the late fall chill. She's just about to cast a Warming Charm on herself when the door swings open.

"Lily, hi."

Something in his voice sounds a little off. Like he's on edge about something. She's something of an expert on picking up on cues like this - it's what's kept her alive this long - and she trusts her intuition more than anything.

"Hi," she replies warily, stepping into his apartment.

"I, uh, do you want to sit down?" he asks, and that's when Lily knows something's really up. They've never been anywhere near that formal. Hell, they've rarely ever made it much farther past the front door without losing at least one article of clothing between the two of them.

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What is it you need to tell me?" she asks flatly. "I assumed this was just another hook-up owl, but… I get the feeling something else is going on instead."

Dear god, she hopes he hasn't somehow managed to catch feelings for her. She'd assumed that was entirely out of the question at this point given just how long they'd lasted without letting feelings get mixed up in the whole thing, but there's a somewhat limited number of reasons Benjy could be this anxious about talking to her.

His eyes go wide for a moment, but he recovers quick enough. "Er, well… yeah. Although it's kind of about the hook-up owls, in a manner of speaking. Mostly that, er, we can't really do them anymore."

Well… at least he's not professing his love to her.

"Oh?"

He runs his hand through his hair, which shouldn't make her think of James but does for some reason. "I've kind of… I've started seeing someone, and we've just decided to be exclusive, so… yeah."

She smiles, and it's actually not at all faked. His cheeks are faintly flushed and he looks positively smitten with whatever girl he's talking about, and she's happy for him. He really is a solid bloke, and he deserves happiness.

And it's not like he was ever going to find it with her.

"I'm happy for you," she tells him, and she thinks she catches a hint of shock on his face for the second time tonight. She imagines he didn't think this would go as smoothly as it's going.

"Thanks," he eventually manages. "You, er, you might know her, actually. She was in your year in Gryffindor… Mary McDonald?"

Lily fights the urge to laugh. The idea that she 'might' know one of her best friends is at least a little funny. Admittedly, she hasn't spent nearly as much time with Mary in recent years as a person would otherwise spend with someone labelled a best friend, but… still.

"I definitely know her."

Benjy laughs awkwardly, which serves to diffuse the tension somewhat. "Oh. Well… that's good, I guess. I… hope there aren't any bad feelings between the two of us?"

She shakes her head. "Not at all. We both knew this wasn't a forever thing, and it sounds like you're really happy about this new development, so… I'm happy for you."

He lets himself smile properly for the first time all evening. "Thank you. You really are a great girl, Lily, and you deserve someone who's all in for you too."

Lily knows he's just trying to be kind, but she can't help but bristle at his words nonetheless. She can't really pin down what it is in his words that she doesn't like, but the instinctive reaction stands. Maybe it's the fact that the idea of someone being 'all in' for her feels like a completely foreign concept, or maybe it's the fact that she doesn't want (and probably doesn't deserve, at this point) someone like that either.

Or maybe it's just the slightly pitying tone in his voice, because nothing frustrates Lily more than feeling like someone's looking down on her.

"In that case," she says, stepping back towards the door, "I'm just going to… leave now, then."

He frowns at her, but it only lasts for a second before it disappears again, replaced by his normal neutral expression. "Okay."

"Bye, Benjy," she says as she steps out the door, and as soon as she crosses the threshold, she Apparates home.

She arrives at her own flat feeling distinctly unsatisfied. It's not about Benjy - she truly meant everything she said to him, and although she'll miss the ease of having a steady hook-up, she could probably find someone else to fuck in the span of a few hours at a bar if she really wanted to.

But she doesn't really want to do that tonight, doesn't want to go to the effort of putting on something halfway decent and revealing, doesn't want to sit at the bar nursing the same stupid cocktail until someone takes the seat next to her, and most importantly, doesn't want to have to fucking talk to anybody.

Benjy was, at least, very good for all of that.

And she'd been counting on that easy comfort tonight, on being able to show up at his flat and letting him make her forget every other little thing running through her brain.

Now, she's right back where she started the evening - frustrated and on edge, topped off by a tinge of numbness, her body effectively shutting down any sort of underlying emotional reaction.

She crosses over into the kitchen, opening a cabinet and reaching up to the top shelf. The bottle she pulls down feels heavy in her hands, a thin layer of dust settled over the top of it from long-term neglect. It's probably been sitting there for at least a year, some obligatory birthday or holiday present that she'd politely thanked the gifter for and promptly stuffed away.

She can't remember the last time she drank alone in her own home. She doesn't even own proper wine glasses, for heaven's sake. Nor does she own anything that would open the bottle, and she's long forgotten whatever spell it is that Dorcas always used in the dorms to open wine bottles, so she stares at the stubborn cork for a long time before eventually opting for a Severing Charm straight across the neck of the bottle.

It's only after she's started pouring wine into one of her tea mugs that she realises her actions have more or less confined her to drinking the entire bottle in a night.

She fills the oversized mug to the top, successfully draining about half the bottle in one go. When she sets it back down on the counter, a single drop slides down the side. It'll probably leave a stain on the countertop if she lets it sit for too long, but she really can't muster up the will to give a fuck about it right now.

She's not entirely sure how what started as a tiny drop of apathy suddenly morphed into this massive cloud of it, but now it's threatening to take her over.

The first sip of wine cuts through it nicely, the acidic tang at least doing something to her senses, and she immediately takes a second sip, this one larger than the one before.

Yes, she thinks to herself. For tonight, this will do quite nicely.

 

---

 

Sixth Year, February 1977

"So what's with the sudden interest in flying?" James asks, broom casually slung over his shoulder.

They're walking in step to the Quidditch pitch - Lily's practically speed-walking to keep up with James' easy strides. Damn his long legs.

She shrugs. "I just haven't done much of it since flying lessons in first year, and I want to see if maybe I'm less awful at it now."

That's only half of the truth, because the other half is something she's not going to say out loud. Because the other half is him. He always looks so damn happy when he's flying, and Quidditch is one of his favourite things in the whole world, and she wants to learn more about it, about him.

Their newfound friendship is relatively fragile, but she's discovered that, when he's not being a pompous show-off, he's actually… really nice to be around. She likes spending time with him.

And that is the real reason she asked him to give her flying lessons.

"You weren't all that awful, Evans," he replies, shaking her from her own thoughts. "It was your first time on a broom, which isn't easy for anyone - a lot of us who grew up with magic started flying on toy brooms as soon as we could walk. You weren't bad - some of us just had a head start."

She's surprised by that response. There's a level of awareness there that she wasn't aware he had - or had bothered giving much thought to, anyways.

"That's… yeah, I guess you've got a point."

"Of course I do," he says, and there's a cocky know-it-all smirk on his face that she once would've been annoyed by but now just finds kind of endearing. "Alright, I'll just grab one of the school brooms from the shed, yeah? You can use mine."

She gives him a confused look. He loves his broom more than just about anything, and that includes the damn Snitch he insists on carrying around everywhere. She's never known him to even consider letting anyone else touch it, much less use it.

"Shouldn't I be the one using a school broom?"

"The school brooms are garbage," he replies. "If you're going to learn to fly, you should do it on a broom that doesn't suck. Trust me, it makes a difference."

"I couldn't - "

He shoves his broom at her. "Just take the broom, Evans."

There's no point in arguing with him, and truth be told, Lily herself would also much rather learn to fly on a quality broom, so she takes it from him. He jogs off to the shed, leaving her to study the broom he's just left in her possession.

There isn't a single twig out of place on it, and the handle shines like it's just been freshly waxed. The broom itself feels sturdy, thrumming with untapped energy that's just waiting to be let loose as soon as it goes airborne.

It's kind of thrilling, and she hasn't even left the ground yet.

"Ready?" She looks up, and James is walking back towards her, a school broom clutched in one of his hands. The difference in the quality of the one she's holding versus the one he's got is instantly noticeable.

"As I'll ever be," she confirms.

"You remember how to get on and get up in the air, yeah? Or should we start there first?"

Lily shakes her head. "No, I've got that part."

At least, she hopes she's got that part. She's relying on his expertise to an extent - that's the whole purpose of taking flying lessons from him, after all - but she'd like to not be completely incompetent either. But she hasn't ridden a broom properly in years.

Luckily, it comes back easily enough, and she finds herself up in the air in a matter of moments.

"Making it look easy, Evans," he says, grinning and joining her a few meters above the ground.

"I'm literally doing the bare minimum, you don't need to flatter me."

She wobbles for a moment, as if to prove her point.

Maybe she shouldn't have asked James for flying lessons. Objectively, this is the activity most likely to result in her making a complete and utter fool out of herself in front of him, and for some reason, she cares a lot about that.

(Technically, he's already witnessed worse, but that was before his opinion of her actually mattered.)

"We can start off easy, just a few circles around the pitch at this height," he instructs. "I'll let you lead, so feel free to go as fast or as slow as you're comfortable with."

James is a natural instructor, and every single one of his pointers has her flying faster and higher. There's something so immensely freeing about being up in the air, about turning all her attention to staying on the broom and pushing herself just a little bit harder with each new lap. She's positively giddy at the sensation.

She's not sure how much time has passed - the sun is significantly lower in the sky, so it's definitely been a while - when she finally heads down to the ground. She's momentarily thrown off balance when her feet hit the grassy pitch, unaccustomed to the feeling of something solid beneath her.

"Does it always feel this weird when you land?" she asks, turning to where James has just landed besides her.

"You get used to it," he replies, "but yes, it always feels this weird."

"I…" she trails off, her brain suddenly gone to mush. Or maybe it's been mush for a while now, and she's only just realising it now that she's trying to form words. "Holy shit, that was so much fun."

He throws his head back laughing like a little kid. She thinks it a little strange, because she's not sure she's said anything that could be construed as funny, but here he is, finding it incredibly hilarious anyways.

"What's so funny?"

He looks at her, the grin still etched on his face as he shakes his head. "Nothing. It's just… that was exactly my reaction the first time I flew properly too. I was like eight at the time and my mum was none too pleased with my use of the word 'shit,' but… yeah. It's pretty damn incredible, isn't it?"

She nods, thinking of how much of a thrill she got in those last few laps, the wind rushing through her hair and filling her with a sense of excitement and peace all at once. "It really is."

"You're a natural, Evans." She turns to face him, an eyebrow raised in skepticism at his praise, and he immediately brings his hands up. "I swear, I'm not saying that to flatter you. You're really, genuinely a natural flier - I was expecting you'd need at least five lessons to do what you were doing by the end there."

"Really?"

Nothing in his face suggests that he's lying, or even just trying to be nice about things, but she needs the additional confirmation anyways.

"Really," he says, nodding solemnly. "I mean, hell, at this rate, I'd reckon you could probably play Quidditch by the end of the year."

Notes:

it was pointed out to me that mr. perfectly fine fit james in this fic extremely well, lmk if you caught either of the two references to that song that i inserted into this chapter as a result :P

Chapter 8: chemistry, 'til it blows up

It's a damn good thing she has the next day off, because the headache that comes from polishing off an entire bottle of wine in an evening is enough to keep her in bed for most of the day, cursing the ultraviolet morning light and firmly reminding her precisely why she doesn't make a habit of using alcohol as a coping mechanism.

She finds herself thinking back to something James had said a while ago, that there's no way he could keep up with Puddlemere's training regimen if he truly made a habit of getting wasted every night - and she thinks he might be onto something there.

She still can't decide what to make of James' story. It simultaneously makes sense and doesn't, explains some things and creates even bigger questions about others.

It's one thing to have a few bad stories about you in the press. It's wholly another to pretend like it's an accident that they've been going on like that for three fucking years. If he really got into this mess through some unhappy circumstances, there's no reason he shouldn't have turned it around by now, especially if he's supposedly still the same person he always was. The James she knew wouldn't be so apathetic and self-pitying - he'd fucking change things.

His words are still weighing heavily on her mind when they have a practice the next day; she manages to completely shut them out for the entirety of practice, her ability to single-mindedly focus on Quidditch the moment she goes airborne coming in handy once again, but the thoughts are right back when they land and James exchanges a joke with Ozzie that has the Keeper clutching his stomach.

She just… she doesn't fucking get it. Something doesn't add up somewhere along the way.

Most of the post-practice work gets distributed to the other coaches, and Lily ends up with the sole task of locking everything up before they leave the practice area.

She's closing the broomshed when a voice tells her to stop.

When she looks up, James is coming towards her, holding his broom.

"Forgot to put it away," he says as an explanation.

"Okay," she replies, tapping the lock with her wand again to open it again. She pushes the door open so that he can go in.

"Thanks."

She's not really sure where they stand anymore, after their meeting in the bookstore. They'd successfully made it through an afternoon of sharing a table without so much as a single biting remark, which is an accomplishment compared to any of their other interactions, but now… she doesn't know what to expect. She suspects they're in some sort of temporary truce, or even just an impasse.

Which is precisely why she shouldn't do this. She's picked a fight with him pretty much every time they've been alone together, and she should really stop doing that, but damn if she doesn't find herself opening her mouth anyways.

"Explain something to me."

He cocks his head. "Explain what?"

"If you hate your reputation so much, why aren't you doing anything to change it? Surely, if you're not actually like what everyone seems to think of you, it shouldn't be hard for you to find a way to prove it?"

A crease appears in his brow. "I - "

She cuts him off. "I mean, first of all, it'd be pretty fucking easy to stop having your face show up in magazines - if you don't go out to clubs, they can hardly post pictures of you at them, yeah? Not to mention how many ways you could come up with other things to do that would take the attention away from that, like making some massive charity donation or hell, even just giving an interview of the supposed 'real James Potter' - I'm sure some reporter would just eat that shit right up."

He shakes his head. "It's not that simple."

"Isn't it though?" she pushes right back.

"Oh, because you're an expert on publicity and public image now?" he replies, and it's obvious that she's struck a nerve.

She shouldn't even be surprised anymore to find that that excites her. Fighting with James is like boxing with no gloves - each punch targeted at where it hurts the most, nothing held back. Nothing there to soften the blow, just pointed words and an uncanny ability to find each other's pain points with a violent precision.

"No, I'm not, and so the fact that I can come up with a potential solution in a few minutes really says something about how much effort you've put into solving this problem that's supposedly plagued you and ruined your life for years."

He puts his broom away with perhaps a little more aggression than is fully warranted. "Ignoring the 'supposedly' in there, because I'm not sure what the hell you're trying to insinuate with that, what makes you think you have any right to just waltz into my life after three years and start telling me what to do with it? You don't know my life anymore."

His words sent a bolt of red-hot anger through her veins - it's a well-placed hit, landing its mark on her perfectly.

"And whose fault is that?" she snaps.

"What?"

She takes a step towards him. "You're right that I don't know your life anymore. Whose fault is that? Who stopped replying to my letters and cut me off as soon as we graduated? I don't know your life because you didn't let me."

He looks dumbfounded by that, and she can practically see the cogs in his head turning as he struggles to come up with a response to that.

Eventually, he just shakes his head. "I'm not getting into this right now with you."

She wants to scream out of frustration. It's absolutely fucking absurd that he can just drop her out of the blue, admit to dropping her out of the blue, and stillsomehow think he can just walk away from the conversation just because he doesn't like it.

She doesn't like that he started ignoring her three years ago, but she didn't get much of a fucking choice in that matter either.

"Why?" she challenges. "Are you scared you'll upset me by admitting it? Because news flash, you're about three years too fucking late on that front."

"That… that's not what I meant - "

Her anger is displaced by an overly bright laugh, and she can see it on his face that he's startled by the abrupt shift. "It doesn't fucking matter what you meant. I don't give a damn about your intentions when your actions clearly don't match."

And with that, she turns on her heel and walks away. She has nothing left to say to him, and there's nothing else he can say to her.

It's only as she's Apparating home that she realises that she's finally managed the last word with him.

About fucking time.

 

---

 

Despite Lily's assumption that the dinner invitation from Sirius had been merely a formality, a letter from him and Remus arrives asking her to come over on Friday night. And, having nothing better to do (along with actually wanting to catch up with them), she accepts.

She finds the address on his letter fairly easily, and climbs up to the third floor to get to unit 31. She knocks, three quick raps against the wood, and the door swings open almost immediately.

"Nice look, Evans," Sirius says as a greeting, grinning at her dark blue bell-bottom jeans.

She doesn't get to wear them much, given that she almost exclusively alternates between athletic gear for Quidditch and dress robes for Order work, so she'll take any chance to put them on. And she's pleased that someone else appreciates them as much as she does.

"Hello to you too, Sirius," she replies, stepping inside the apartment.

"Lily!" Remus's voice rings out from somewhere inside the flat, and then he appears from around the corner. "It's so good to see you, I was beginning to think you'd completely vanished from the face of the earth."

"Nope, still here," she replies, and Remus closes the space between them to give her a hug.

She's surprised by that, but somehow manages to return the hug nonetheless. Sirius offers her a drink, and she accepts, if only to give her something to do with her hands. She sits at the bar while the two of them work together to cook dinner, moving around each other with a sort of practiced ease that shows just how comfortable they are together, just how many times they've done this before.

Sirius asks her about work, and she launches into a story about a match from last season.

"You know," Remus says after she's finished, "when Sirius mentioned you were coaching Quidditch, I couldn't quite see it. But god, it makes so much sense now."

Lily has to laugh at that. He's certainly not the first person to express that sentiment, and while she might take offense to it coming from some people, she knows Remus means it only in the most genuine of ways.

It's strange to her, the way that Remus and Sirius seem to practically be the same people they were three years ago. Sure, they're older and more secure and Sirius smacking Remus's ass as the other man walks by him in the kitchen wouldn't have happened when they were seventeen, but at the core of it, they almost make it seem as if no time has passed at all.

Time is tricky in that way, she thinks to herself. Some people stand still despite the passage of it, holding tight to the core of who they are despite the changes in the world, despite the shifting ground beneath them. And then others are altered drastically by it, for better or for worse, transformed into wholly unrecognizable entities by the circumstances they've been subjected to.

That, she supposes, is one thing she and James have in common. Her blind faith in the inherent goodness of the world has gradually crumbled in the face of everything she's lived through, and the person that's been left in its wake is cold and cynical in a way that would probably terrify her past self. And James is… well, he's whatever he is now.

"How did you end up at Puddlemere, anyways?" Sirius asks casually as he carries the pot of pasta primavera out to their small kitchen table, tearing Lily out of her philosophical musings and back into the present moment.

"It was a lucky coincidence, really," Lily says, launching into the story she's told numerous times before. "I was at Quality Quidditch Supplies for some broom polish, and somehow started talking Quidditch strategy with the person ringing me up, and someone with some Puddlemere connections overheard me and apparently liked what I was saying, and he suggested I come out to the training compound to interview for a new assistant position that had opened up and… well, the job was mine from there."

Most of that is the truth. The events of her story did actually happen, but none of it was a 'lucky coincidence.' Lily made her own luck and her own coincidences in this world - with the help of some of Dumbledore's connections.

Sirius laughs. "That sounds about how I got my job. I couldn't shut up about motorcycles while I was looking for a certain part for my bike, and one of the mechanics offered me a job then and there. It really might've just been because he figured that would get me to finally stop talking."

"It's great, because now I no longer have to hear about motorcycles," Remus quips.

They all sit at the table to eat, and somehow, the entire thing feels just like old times. Once they work through the basic catching up, it's so easy with the two of them. She feels almost nostalgic for their Hogwarts years, and for the first time in a while, it's not in a bitter sort of way. She just genuinely enjoys their company.

Somehow, the passage of time had made her forget that.

They polish off two bottles of wine between the three of them before the night is over (though truthfully Sirius and Remus are the consumers of most of it), and Lily genuinely can't remember the last time she's laughed this hard.

When she leaves, she's promising that they'll do this again soon, that they won't let time slip away from them this way again.

And she finds that she means it.

 

---

 

There's a sudden drop in temperature that somehow makes for a particularly rough practice, and all Lily can think about as it comes to an end is a hot shower in the locker room followed by an equally hot cup of tea.

The team and coaching staff are all silent as they file back into the building - it seems everyone feels the way she does and have decided that it is simply far too cold to socialize or do anything other than figure out how to warm themselves up. None of them were expecting this cold, it seems, and no one was properly dressed for it.

Lily's on a mission to get to the showers, so she walks over to her locker and rifles through her bag to pick up all the necessities - a towel, shampoo, a pair of joggers, and… something's missing. A shirt. She could've sworn she threw something into her bag to wear - she never forgets things, especially not things as important as a change of clothes when she knows she'll be staying around the facilities all afternoon.

But it seems there's a first for everything, because she's forgotten it today.

There are almost always some extra jerseys and practice gear in the storage closets, so that's just going to have to be her solution for now.

She pops over to the closest storage closet to the locker room, leaving the door open and not bothering to turn on the light. The fact that her fingers (along with nearly every other part of her body) are almost completely numb means that she has no interest in doing anything beyond the absolute bare minimum. All she can think about is hot water and thawing out every inch of her frozen skin, so she goes to the first box she sees, tearing it open and pulling the first jersey out. She doesn't even bother checking the size, just confirms that it is in fact a shirt, before slipping back out of the closet and into the locker room again.

There's one last open shower stall, so she takes it and immediately turns the water as hot as it'll go. It hurts like hell at first, the pins and needles under her skin at the abrupt change of temperature, but she stubbornly refuses to move from under the shower stream until her skin is pink and every inch of her has been fully warmed up.

When she finally turns the water off, the locker room falls silent. Somehow, she's the last person in the showers. She ties her wet hair up and dresses quickly, trying not to be too bothered by how her black joggers were not meant to be paired with a navy blue shirt (because really, it's not like anyone will see her for the rest of the day anyways), before going back to the main area of the locker room where the rest of her things are stashed.

James is the only other person left in the locker room - she's noticed that he tends to take the longest showers of anyone on the team by far, which means he's often the last to leave - and she can sense that he notices her arrival.

There's a tense silence between them as she collects her things.

She's comfortable keeping it that way.

She doesn't have anything to say to him at this point. She's got no intention of picking a fight with him today. She's cutting him off, making herself an island, punishing him with her silence.

He seems to have a different idea though, and his voice rings through the empty locker room as clear as day.

"Lily?"

The use of her first name catches her entirely off-guard, hitting some sort of painfully nostalgic nerve she'd rather leave untouched. It has the effect of making her turn to him automatically, all plans of silent treatment and ignorance temporarily forgotten.

When she faces him, his eyes are on her, and he looks distinctly unsettled.

"Can I help you?"

He blinks a few times, as if he's recovering from some sort of shock. "Er, no. It's just - where'd you get that shirt from?"

She doesn't know why that matters, but she answers him anyways. "The supply closet. I forgot to bring an extra today."

"Ah," he replies, something still a little off in his tone. "Well, I figure I should warn you that it's got my name on the back of it - and I'd guess if you knew that you wouldn't have put it on."

There's a smirk on his face, but the amusement doesn't quite reach his eyes.

But that would explain why the box was unopened - it's the new merchandise. That would explain why there was a full box of them instead of an almost-empty box of the last few throwaway spare jerseys like usual, and if her mind had been even a little less foggy from the cold, she would've thought about that and questioned it. Or at least had the presence of mind to think that something might be off and to look at the back of the fucking shirt.

"Oh," is what she manages as a response.

She thinks about how it probably looks - her messy bun, oversized joggers, and jersey emblazoned with 'POTTER' across her shoulder blades. No one in the Quidditch compound will think twice about her appearance, but to the average person, she probably looks exactly like his latest one night stand, like she threw herself together after a night of fun and stole his shirt on the way out.

That thought elicits two, very different reactions, and eventually, the disgust wins out.

She hates the idea of being seen as one of his latest things. She's immensely grateful she can Apparate directly home from here after she's done with work today, and promptly shove this jersey in some dark corner of her closet where she'll never have to think about it again, or somehow sneak it back into the supply closet like she'd never taken it at all.

But for now, she needs the fucking shirt because she sure as hell isn't going to walk around the offices in nothing but a sports bra, so the offending article of clothing stays on.

"Just… out of curiosity, was that from a new box of them?" James asks, and when she looks over at him, there's an earnestness in his eyes only partially masked by his usual nonchalant expression.

"Er, yeah, it was," she replies, unsure why that matters.

But clearly it does and he seems to find something humorous in it, because he's laughing bitterly under his breath as he turns to leave.

 

---

 

Seventh Year, March 1978

She can't find James.

The prefects' meeting is set to start in less than five minutes, and she can't fucking find James. The Head Boy, who's supposed to be leading this meeting with her, and who, most importantly, has the only updated copy of the rounds schedule.

The first few prefects filter into the room, and she starts to tap her foot impatiently. She finds herself wishing she'd somehow stolen that map of his, because at least then she'd know where he is and whether or not he's going to be here on time.

He's been so good at being on time to Head things, to the point that she's almost forgotten running late like this is usually his specialty. And goddammit, she really needs him to be on time today.

"Lily?"

She turns to the Hufflepuff prefect addressing her. "Yes?"

"Is there still going to be a Hogsmeade visit in April? Some of the other students have been asking, since the first half of the month is Easter holidays?"

Lily honestly keeps forgetting Easter holidays are even a thing - it's not like she'll be going home for them anyways, so they barely even register in her mind.

"Yes, there will be - we'll go over the details during the meeting," she answers, before turning her attention back to the door, where a couple of Slytherin prefects are coming in but still no James.

She's reached her peak of annoyance and just about resigned to leading the meeting herself and telling the prefects they'll just have to pick up the rounds schedule tomorrow when he bursts through the door, red-faced and sweaty. His hair is completely windswept and his broom is slung over his shoulder, so there's no mystery where he's just come from.

"Sorry I'm late, Evans," he says breathlessly as he joins her at the front of the room. "I lost track of time while I was out on the pitch and had to sprint up here."

She cuts straight to the point. "Do you have the rounds schedule?"

"Yes, and I made copies," he replies, reaching into his bag and pulling a stack of papers out.

"Well thank Merlin for that, at least," she says, the edge in her voice unmistakeable. She takes them from him and keeps a copy for herself before passing the rest of the stack off to the nearest prefect.

When she looks back at him, there's something in his expression that vaguely resembles a kicked puppy, and she realizes that her snappiness might have had a stronger impact on him than she'd intended.

She doesn't have time to dissect that though, because they've got a room full of prefects waiting for announcements and James' tardiness has already ensured that they're not starting right on schedule.

But despite the rough start, the rest of the meeting goes fairly smoothly - barring the cluster of Slytherins who inevitably snicker at everything she says - and eventually James dismisses the prefects and they all file out of the room, leaving just the two of them in the office.

"You're mad at me," he observes as soon as the door shuts.

It's more complicated than that, though. If he'd made that observation at the start of the meeting, the answer probably would have been an undisputed yes, but that initial frustration has faded significantly over time. She doesn't know how to express that out loud though, so she settles for saying something completely different.

"Why were you late? And why were you out at the Quidditch pitch? We didn't have practice today."

"Yeah, I know," he replies, his hand jumping to his hair as it so often does when he's nervous. "But with the open tryouts I have scheduled over Easter break, days off aren't really an option right now - there's just not room for error in these professional tryouts. I need to be at the top of my game if I even want a chance of getting a spot on a team. So I went out for a few hours after class and I swear, I didn't forget about this meeting and I wasn't trying to slack on my Head duties, I just misread my watch in the sun and just… I'm sorry."

With every word, she feels the last bits of her anger towards him subside, replaced with something warm. It's hard to stay mad at him when he's like this, open and genuine and right in front of her.

"I - it's okay," she replies. "You weren't actually late, after all. The only thing you missed was a question about Hogsmeade visits and me forgetting that Easter break is a thing most people are actually planning on taking advantage of."

She's got no reason to go home now, and she's not entirely sure she'd be welcomed either, given how she'd left things with her mum and Petunia after her dad's funeral.

James' hand falls back down to his side again. "Okay. Well, if you still want me to make it up to you somehow, feel free to put me in charge of sorting all the detention slips for the week - I know you hate doing that, so - "

"Don't tempt me like that. You know I'll take you up on it in a heartbeat, even though you really don't have anything to make up for."

He cracks a smile at that. "I'll take three-quarters of them instead of half this week. And by the way, I really hope you plan on taking advantage of Easter break in some way, even if it's just escaping to Hogsmeade with me and Sirius a couple nights."

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise when she realizes what he's insinuating. "You're staying at Hogwarts over break? I didn't think any of the other Gryffindor seventh years were."

"Change of plans," he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I couldn't leave you stuck in the castle all by yourself, could I?"

He… he did this for her?

"But your tryouts - "

"I'll leave for those, I ran it by McGonagall and she was fine with me leaving for the day a couple of times, so long as I don't make it public knowledge that she's making an exception for me."

He's grinning at that, and of course he is. McGonagall has the biggest soft spot for him, though she tries to suppress it.

And really, Lily doesn't blame her. There's a lot about James worth having a soft spot for.

"I - thank you."

She couldn't possibly tell him what this means to her, the fact that she'll be just a little less alone during the last holiday break of her Hogwarts career, the fact that she'll have him and Sirius around to push away the inevitable heavy feelings that'll come when she thinks about the shattered state of her family and all that she's lost.

She couldn't possibly tell him what he means to her.

It hits her then, for the first time: a realisation she probably should've had months ago. A realisation that her feelings about him - for him - run deeper than just the easy friendship they've built. She likes him. She likes him so, so much.

Her own sudden epiphany has her imagining things, because she swears there's a slight flush on James' cheeks when she looks up at him.

He shrugs. "It's no big deal. And being able to practice on the pitch here all the way up to tryouts definitely doesn't hurt."

The fire in the room dances in the reflection of his glasses - she doesn't know why she's suddenly so fixated on that detail, but something about it is mesmerising.

Maybe it's just the eyes behind them, sincere and full of light.

She thinks to herself that she might be staring for a bit too long, so she says the first thing that comes to mind, her words coming out in a rush. "I know I'm probably not the ideal person to run drills with, given the whole lack of any Chaser experience, but if you ever need a second set of hands out there… I can do my best."

He smiles. "I might just have to take you up on that."

"It'll be nice to have my claim to fame be that I once helped the famous professional Quidditch player James Potter prepare for his first tryouts," she tells him, picking up her bag from under the table.

He grabs his as well, an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they'll head back to the Gryffindor common room now. "Oh, I'm sure you'll have plenty of your own claims to fame - you won't need that one."

"Maybe, but none of my claims to fame will ever get me a whole mass of screaming fans wearing jerseys with my name on them."

She thinks about that for a moment, about a Quidditch stadium full of people screaming his name, asking for his autograph as he leaves after a match. And for the briefest of moments, she imagines herself there too, wearing his number on her back, his eyes finding her in the crowd immediately, because of course he's only got eyes for her.

The fantasy feels so real. Somehow, envisioning a future with him comes naturally.

"Tell you what, Evans," James says, drawing her attention back to the present moment but somehow mirroring her inner thoughts all the same, "if I ever make it big enough that they make jerseys with my name on them, I'll make sure you get the first one out of the box."

Chapter 9: if the story's over, why am i still writing pages?

Much of December passes by silently. Training goes as it always does, gearing up for the start of the season after the holidays, and Lily predictably ends up putting most of her time and energy into work.

James doesn't speak to her again, and for once, she doesn't feel the constant urge to pick a fight with him. Maybe she was just so desperate to get that last word for once that finally getting it drained her of any desire to fight with him, or maybe she just doesn't have anything left to say to him anymore, but their only interactions come from a purely professional standpoint - Lily giving a pointer for his next shot, him executing it almost perfectly the next time.

She hardly even realizes it when Christmas approaches - it really only hits her when they run their last practice before the holidays and Harrison reminds the team that they're getting the next three days off so that they can properly go home and celebrate, but they're not allowed to do anything stupid while they're at it.

Lily isn't much for holidays, at least not these days. She loves Christmas, the twinkling lights and cheery music and festive atmosphere, but something about it has soured with age.

It's nothing about the holiday itself, or any holidays really, but more so to do with the fact that every single one of them is a reminder of family - and that alone is enough to ruin the whole thing.

Her mother didn't even bother inviting her home this Christmas. Admittedly, Lily hasn't gone home the past two years and it's unlikely she would've even gone if she had been invited, but still. The gesture would've at least been something. It would've at least been some acknowledgement that there's a second Evans daughter - not a perfect one with a successful husband and darling baby boy like the first one, but a daughter nonetheless.

She misses her dad. If he was still here, he would've made sure Lily got a Christmas invitation. And if he was still here, she probably would've gone.

In the absence of her family, the holidays aren't completely spoiled though. She's got other people to spend the day with, which is why she's standing outside Marlene and Dorcas's flat knocking on the door on Christmas morning.

Marlene opens the door, wearing a flannel pyjama set covered in snowflakes. "Happy Christmas, Lily!" she says, before pulling Lily into a hug.

"Happy Christmas to you too," Lily replies. "Nice pyjamas, by the way."

Marlene pulls back, grinning. "You've got a set too, you know. Dorcas and I bought sets for all four of us, and I fully expect you to put yours on and wear them around until dinner."

Lily can't argue with that - being told to change out of her jeans and sweater into something infinitely cozier feels like a win on all accounts.

The package comes sailing from behind Marlene's head (presumably thrown by Dorcas, although Lily never actually saw the other woman throw it), and Lily catches it easily. The set is identical to Marlene's, except instead of snowflakes, hers are covered in little reindeer.

"Get it?" Dorcas asks from the couch. "Because of your Patronus?"

The sight of all the little deer immediately makes her think of someone else, and she shuts that thought down as quickly as it came. She's trying to enjoy today, and she's not going to let yet another person darken her view of what really should be a wonderful holiday. She hates that she lets herself see James everywhere; the fact that she's haunted by those little inside jokes that once were theirs but are no one's now.

"I love them," she lies, or maybe it's not actually a lie, but as usual, she can't quite entangle the cocktail of emotions that any reminder of James seems to stir up in her.

"Well then, get changed," Marlene says, nudging Lily towards the bathroom. "Mary will be here any minute and I will be extremely disappointed if we aren't all matching by the time she arrives."

Lily does as she's told, going into the girls' tiny guest bathroom and swapping out her clothes for the pyjamas. As she looks in the mirror, she can't help but smile at her reflection - it's so festive and cheerful that it's a bit difficult not to be happy about it.

Marlene and Dorcas have taken it upon themselves to make a rather extravagant Christmas brunch, at least by Lily's standards. There's almost too many dishes to choose between - certainly more than four women could be expected to consume over the course of a couple hours. After thinking through which foods she wants to start with, Lily pours herself a cup of coffee and grabs a still-warm cinnamon roll from the counter, finding a spot on the girls' expansive couch and curling up in it.

Mary arrives not long after - the pyjamas Marlene throws at her are covered in elves and stockings - and the four of them look like the image of a Christmas card by the time they're all outfitted.

It's cheesy as hell, and Lily finds she kind of loves it.

The combination of circumstances that has brought her three people to spend Christmas morning with, and three people who she's honestly happier to spend it with than her own family, who she'd traditionally be expected to spend it with, is a mix of good fortune and unfair situations. Mary's parents are too far away this year, Dorcas' family - beyond a few siblings - haven't acknowledged her much since she came out, and Marlene's dad is caught up with a new family with his third wife.

They're all misfits, in their own right. Always have been, in a sense.

They all open gifts together, pausing to refill cups of coffee or add more food to their plates every so often, and then, with a pile of crumpled up balls of wrapping paper in the center of the room, they fall into easy conversation.

There are times where Lily feels somewhat out of touch with what's happening around her - Marlene and Dorcas live together, and the two of them see Mary far more than she sees any of them, so there are certain times where it'll become obvious that this is something the three of them have talked about before.

She's also accepted that her Quidditch schedule and Order work have kept her somewhat isolated. She's missed all too many a girls' night because of some shitty pureblood social event. There's not much she can do about it - she's certain she could make a little bit more effort if she really tried, but at this point, she's got enough going on.

And she's here for the important things, at least, like Christmas.

"Oh. You'll never guess who I ran into the other day," Mary says, and the sudden change of tone startles Lily back into the conversation.

"Who?"

"Peter Pettigrew," she answers. "And his girlfriend of over two years - who, by the way, is fucking gorgeous, so good for him."

"Oh god, I haven't seen Pettigrew in ages," Marlene says.

"Neither had I - I honestly almost didn't recognise him at first," Mary admits. She gives a brief rundown on Peter's life and the few updates she'd gotten form him about Remus and Sirius - all information Lily technically already knew, but she nods along with the other two women nonetheless.

"He also said he's throwing a party for New Year's," Mary throws out at the end. "He invited me and told me that if any of you want to come along, you're welcome to. It's mostly going to be people he's met after Hogwarts, so not too many people we know, but at the very least, the other Gryffindor boys will be there too."

Lily feels multiple sets of eyes glance over to her in that moment. She knows what they're all thinking. She's passed up on almost every social event involving people from their Hogwarts days for the same reason she'd avoided any interaction with the Portree Quidditch staff for the better part of her professional Quidditch career: she didn't want to risk a run-in with James if she could help it.

But now, the game has changed a little. Lily's no longer thinking about what might happen if she ever runs into him again - because she's done it, and it's gone exactly as horribly as she'd expected it would. She's got nothing to lose at this point

"I ignore him all the time at work - a party shouldn't be that different," she tells them. "And all of you will be there too, plus Remus and Sirius and Peter. It'll be fine."

It's not really a lie - they've been in a constant dance of refusing to acknowledge the other person's existence except in a professional sense for the past two weeks, and surely it'll be even easier to do the same at a noisy New Year's party.

She's boarded up any feeling she might've had left for him; she's done letting herself look into the boarded-up windows of their past when it's clear none of it is left anymore. She's made pretending it's okay when it's not into a fucking art form - now it's time to just close the book forever and stop letting James fucking Potter dictate how she lives her life.

What better way to start a new year than that?

 

---

 

Perhaps the single biggest perk of working for a professional Quidditch team is the all-hours access to any of the facilities. It's something she'd probably have to pay a fortune for otherwise, but instead she gets the entire training room to herself on Boxing Day.

This room has a tendency to feel hot and suffocating when it's occupied by an entire Quidditch team and the training staff, but alone, it's a never-ending sprawl of unused equipment.

Running training sessions is certainly a workout in and of itself, but it's not this. When Lily's alone in here, she can work herself to the bone, finding a twisted sort of joy in expending every last bit of energy she has and, after hitting that, seeing how much further she can push.

Her friends are all convinced she's batshit crazy for it, but to her there's truly nothing more satisfying than that moment at the end of a grueling workout where she hits the point of having nothing left to give, and just lays on the floor, staring up at the ceiling for an indeterminate amount of time while her heart rate and breathing settle and her limbs remember how to function again.

It makes her feel something, a welcome respite from feeling so goddamn numb all the time.

It's in that position, dripping sweat onto the cold concrete floor and counting ceiling tiles with each rapid breath, that a voice rings out across the training room, effectively scaring the shit out of her.

"Evans, didn't expect to see you here."

She shoots up into a seated position, her abdominal muscles screaming in protest from the sudden movement, to see Harrison standing at the doorway. None of the players or coaches are coming in today, and he's not in the habit of taking advantage of the training facilities himself like Lily does, so she's not sure what he's doing here.

"I'm just - " she has to pause in between words, still out of breath, "taking advantage - of my day off."

Harrison finds that humorous for some reason, grinning and shaking his head. "This isn't what most people would consider 'taking advantage of a day off,' but I suppose that's part of what makes you the very person I needed to speak to."

She wants to ask what he means by that, but she can't get the words out before he speaks again. "So it works out well that you're here. Meet me in my office when you're done and showered?"

He doesn't wait for an answer - Lily gets the feeling it's more a command than a request anyways.

Her brain wants to rush through her recovery and shower, desperately curious to figure out what the hell Harrison wants to talk to her about, but her body imposes its own limitations. As a result, she's stuck taking her time and thinking through a hundred possible reasons - good and bad - that Harrison seems so keen on meeting with her.

A modest amount of time has passed by the time she's finally able to make an appearance in Harrison's doorway.

If Lily's office is the most decorated one in the compound, Harrison's is easily second. He's got actual office furniture, for one, which puts him a mark above pretty much all of the other assistant coaches, and being the head coach ensures he has far more tools and resources lying around.

The head coach has more than his usual amount of papers spread out across his desk, but he's paying attention to none of them. Rather, he's absorbed by a live model, magically demonstrating plays and acting out what certain moves will look like in a real game.

Lily notes, with a hint of surprise, that none of the players on his model are in Puddlemere colours.

She raps gently on the doorframe, and he looks up at the sound.

"Is now still a good time?"

He nods, flicking his wand at the model so that it disappears. "Yes. Have a seat."

She enters, sitting in one of the large blue chairs across from him. Her legs practically sing in relief at no longer having to hold her up, and she briefly entertains the idea of never leaving this seat. Harrison probably wouldn't enjoy that much, but her limbs, which feel more akin to jelly than actual useful body parts, would greatly appreciate it.

Harrison gets down to business immediately, folding his hands on the desk. "I'm going to share some information with you, but it must remain completely confidential. You cannot share this with any of the other coaching staff, nor any of the players. Understand?"

"Yes sir," she replies. She's in the habit of keeping secrets, and she's got more of them than she can possibly count - adding one more to the list is hardly an unwieldy request.

"I'm being tapped to join the coaching staff for the England National Team."

So that explains the differently-coloured players.

"Congratulations," she says. "That's an incredible honour."

He nods. "It is. However, it has its own complications. Namely, that the recruiting process is taking a large chunk of time out of what I'd normally be able to give to Puddlemere."

"Are you leaving?" she asks. For all that she may have some petty frustrations with the way Harrison talks about her sometimes, the fact remains that he very clearly respects her and respects her coaching in a way that she's not sure another head coach would.

He shakes his head. "No, I'm not going anywhere. Not yet, anyways."

She tries not to physically breathe a sigh of relief. "That's good."

"But because I will be somewhat limited in my capacity here, I need someone to step up into a bigger role in my absence. Worthington wants to bring in someone new, but I told him absolutely not. I don't want someone coming in and taking over a team that they don't know how to run. I've spent years making this program what it is, and an outsider isn't going to do it justice. I want you to do it."

Harrison has increasingly left her in charge of things over the past few months; she hadn't thought much of it at the time, even though in hindsight maybe she should have - most of the other assistants haven't been given anywhere near that amount of control.

Even still, it's a bit difficult to believe what he's offering her right now.

In her silence, he continues. "Because my connections with the National Team need to stay confidential at this point in the process, this won't be something you can discuss… with anyone. Worthington is, truthfully, not entirely keen on this proposal - I think in part because of your age - but I've reminded him that I know the coaching staff better than he does, and you are undoubtedly the best person suited to carry out what I've spent so long building here. It won't be public knowledge that you're taking on a greater leadership role, anyways."

In any life that wasn't her own, she'd find herself annoyed at this proposal - she's being asked to do more work and getting absolutely zero recognition for it. But in this life, a life where she has two separate realities that hinge on never intermingling, the greater anonymity she can retain, the better. Ultimately, being able to step into a more meaningful position without getting any of the additional attention she might otherwise receive for it is the best of both worlds for her, the most desirable outcome.

"So what do you say? Can I entrust you with this?"

She nods. "Absolutely."

 

---

 

Seventh Year, June 1978

"I can't believe we're doing this," Lily mutters.

"Oh, come on, Evans, where's your sense of adventure?" Sirius teases, slinging an arm around her shoulder. He does so with such force that Lily almost drops the bottle of wine in her hand.

"It's clearly right here, since I'm doing this with you lot," she replies. "It's my common sense that's gone missing."

They - eight Gryffindor seventh-years - are bound for the Astronomy Tower, not a single concealment charm or invisibility cloak in sight. Remus is watching the map, but there's still a level of boldness to this whole endeavor, particularly considering that they're all carrying alcohol so openly.

"If it's any consolation," James says, suddenly appearing at her other side, "my common sense went missing years ago."

"That is no consolation whatsoever."

Sirius throws his head back laughing at James' expense, and she turns to him - the smirk doesn't fall from her features. "You don't get to laugh at that, you're even worse off than he is."

"Remus is obviously the only one of us with sense," Peter chimes in. "He's the only reason we didn't get caught for half the pranks we pulled over the past seven years."

"And you did get caught on the other half because you didn't listen to me," Remus adds, not even looking up from the map to do so.

Sirius is still arguing with him by the time they all arrive at the Astronomy Tower, throwing out blankets over the cold stone floor and popping open bottles of wine and firewhisky. The outside air is somehow warm and cool all at once, that perfect mix created by a late evening at the beginning of summer, and Lily sheds the cardigan she'd been wearing on the way up here.

The eight of them start off in a circle, passing drinks back and forth, but the circle quickly fragments into something decidedly less organised. It's a good thing the Tower is pretty much soundproof to the lower floors, because Sirius' booming laugh and Marlene's yelling would undoubtedly get them caught otherwise. The volume problem only gets worse the more they drink - they're already a loud bunch naturally, but alcohol has a tendency to severely exacerbate the problem.

She notices, as she's pouring her second glass of wine into a plastic cup, that James is definitely closer to her now than he was when they first sat down. She's not sure which one of them is responsible for that.

"Can I try some of that?" he asks her, leaning in so close that she can practically feel his body heat. "Peter just ran off to the other side of the Tower with the last of the whisky."

She hands him the bottle. "Be warned - Sirius picked it out and it is truly the definition of a bottom-shelf red."

"It can't be that bad," James replies as he pours some into his own cup. He takes a sip and grimaces. "Or maybe it can be."

Lily laughs at that.

Then he licks his lips, catching a drop of wine with his tongue, and the laughter abruptly dies in her throat. She definitely shouldn't be so brazenly staring at him, but she's tipsy and he's… mesmerising.

He's grinning at her now, and she feels a flush creep up her cheeks. She doesn't know if he noticed her reaction - and if he did, how he feels about it.

But he's not moving away from her, at any rate.

"Well, when you've got your huge fancy Quidditch star salary, you can use it to force him to buy better alcohol," she finds herself saying. It breaks the moment, and Lily can't tell if she's relieved or disappointed by her own actions.

James is… she's not really sure what they are anymore, but she sometimes feels like 'friends' is no longer the right word for it. What passes between them is very different from her relationship with Mary or his with Remus - there's something more here.

It's in the way he'd reach out and take her hand while they were both studying for NEWTs these past few weeks, quieting her fears with a simple touch. The way he's become such a central figure in her life, working his way into it so fully that she can't find a part of her that he hasn't taken up. The way she's come to trust him more than anyone else, more than she'd ever thought herself capable of in the aftermath of Snape's betrayal in fifth year.

It's in the way he rests his head on her shoulder, looking up at her with doe eyes that really make her feel like maybe her feelings for him aren't unrequited.

"I'll be sure to put that on the top of the priority list."

A comfortable silence emerges between the two of them - a complete contrast to the chaotic shouting from the other side of the Tower, where Peter, Sirius, Marlene, and Dorcas are all engaged in some strange drinking game with Remus playing referee.

"Okay, this is cute, I'm photographing this," Mary announces, walking over to the two of them. They both turn to face her, James lifting his head off of her shoulder, the sudden absence of his warmth something Lily feels acutely.

"No!" Mary cries, a bit dramatically, waving them off. "Pretend I'm not here - that's why this shit is cute."

"We're not cute," Lily argues.

"On the contrary, Evans, I think we're adorable."

She doesn't have it in her to fight that - especially not when he wraps his arm around her waist and closes the last tiniest bit of space left between them. She leans into him automatically, this sort of closeness somehow feeling like the most natural thing in the world.

There's a click of a camera, and Lily knows Mary's gotten her shot.

She'll have to get a copy of that one from Mary - she's determined to fill the flat she gets as soon as she leaves school with as many pictures of her friends and her life as she can, and this moment with James definitely deserves a spot somewhere on the walls. One of their last moments at Hogwarts. The closing of a book she's never wanted to end.

Mary walks away, clearly content with her photography work, but James' arm doesn't move.

She doesn't want it to.

"Are you scared? Everything's going to change when we leave here." She's not sure why the words leave her mouth, holding all the potential to ruin this extremely happy and peaceful moment, but she can't take them back.

"I don't think everything will change," he replies, sounding so much more sure of himself than she is. "I mean, yeah, we won't be in classes anymore and we won't all be living in the same tower, but… I don't know. I don't think graduating is necessarily going to make it all so completely different."

"I hope you're right," she says. She wants to believe him, but she also knows that the real world is massively different from what they've got here. It's going to be a hell of a lot harder to all get together like this, what with everyone scattering across the country and pursuing new career paths.

Not to mention that Dumbledore's got plans for her that she's got to get started with just three days after they leave this castle. She'll have her own hands completely full as well.

"Of course I'm right," he replies, and she can feel his self-confident smirk without even needing to see his face.

"It's just - I'm going to miss nights like these. Normally I'd know to expect something like this as soon as we got back - I'd look forward to the first of September all summer long."

"Who says we can't do something on the first of September this year? There's nothing stopping you from looking forward to it now."

His words give her an idea. "I would say 'you're right' but I'm not going to let that go to your head right now," she tells him, before turning to look at everyone else in the group, who have migrated back towards this side of the Astronomy Tower. "I have important news. I'm throwing a party on the first of September," she announces, "and I fully expect every single one of you to show up."

"I dunno, Evans, I might have better plans by then," Sirius replies, taking a swig of wine. He notably doesn't wince at it, and she notes that either he has a far higher tolerance for shitty wine than she does or he somehow managed to get a good bottle and keep it all to himself. She really wouldn't be surprised by either.

She narrows her eyes at him. "If you stand me up, Black, I will never forgive you."

He lifts his hands in mock surrender. "Fine. I won't risk your wrath."

"Smart choice," she tells him.

And oddly, that one simple decision feels like everything. This isn't saying goodbye, this isn't the end of the story - it's starting a new one, with plenty of fresh pages just waiting to be filled.

Chapter 10: back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known

Lily, truthfully, hasn't spent much time imagining what Peter Pettigrew's living space would look like, but if she'd even given herself a moment to reflect on that, she absolutely would not have come up with this.

For starters, it's immaculate, which is rather impressive for a place holding a multitude of party guests and a fair amount of alcohol. She gets the feeling the spotlessness won't last forever, but the fact that it's held out this long is a feat in and of itself.

The whole place is also decidedly soft - florals and pastels and delicate details that give Lily the sneaking suspicion that Peter more or less let his girlfriend make most of the decorating decisions for their shared space.

Really, if it weren't for the framed pictures of the two of them right by the front door, Lily would doubt this was even his house at all.

"Where do you think the drinks are?" Dorcas asks; she's seemingly less reflective about Peter's living space.

"It's probably safest to just follow the sound of all the people," Lily replies, then does exactly that, with Marlene and Dorcas in tow.

Lily doesn't recognize anyone in the living room at first glance - she's sure she'll see at least a few familiar faces before the night is over, but right now she's more than happy to fade into relative anonymity.

The kitchen proves to be the source of the alcohol, and Lily pours herself a mix of gin and some sort of juice, while Marlene and Dorcas both make themselves a colorful concoction with a heavy-handed pour of tequila.

"Should we attempt to locate any familiar faces?" Marlene asks. She takes a sip of her drink and grimaces.

"Do we want to wait for Mary to arrive?"

Lily had expected their fourth friend to also be meeting up at Marlene and Dorcas' flat before coming to Peter's, but given that the other two hadn't waited up for her, it seems Mary decided to come to the party on her own time.

"Nah, she'll get here whenever," Marlene replies. "And she'll have Benjy to keep her company."

Lily freezes at the mention of Benjy's name. Of all the people she'd thought of potentially running into tonight, all the people she hasn't seen in years who she might be forced to make small talk with and catch up with, for some reason she hadn't even once considered the man now dating one of her best friends. The man who, up until about a month ago, she'd been covertly hooking up with.

Fuck.

It's not that she's concerned it'll be awkward, because there really aren't any feelings there to be awkward about, but she does kind of wish that the first time she'd be seeing him after everything would be in… a somewhat lower-stakes situation. A slightly less public one. Just to feel out how they're meant to interact with each other now.

"You know Benjy, right?" Dorcas asks, seemingly oblivious to Lily's reaction to the mention of his name. "He was two years above us, or something like that - I don't know if Mary mentioned it to you, but she started seeing him a few weeks ago."

"Lily knows Benjy," Marlene answers for her. "I think they actually hooked up once or twice a few years ago, yeah?"

It's not that she wants to lie to two of her closest friends, exactly, but now doesn't seem to be like a great time to reveal that, actually, that one-time hook-up Marlene knows about had somehow spiralled into a fairly regular thing over the past year and a half. So she just nods and goes along with Marlene's story.

"Yeah, I went home with him one of those times that Marlene convinced me to go out with her," she answers.

Even that is apparently news to Dorcas - Lily can't even imagine how much more shocked her friend would be if Lily had actually said the full truth. "How did I miss that?"

"I think that was when you were in Auror training, love," Marlene replies. "You had your hands full with that and I started having to drag Lily to all the happy hours I wanted to go to instead."

"And thank god you finished Auror training," Lily says.

As much as she loves Marlene, having to contend with both going out partying with her and going out as Calypso every week was simply too much for her to handle. Her energy for that sort of stuff is limited, and right now, almost all of it is channeled at her Order work - it has to be.

"Yeah, yeah, Prongs, I'm getting it," someone yells. She recognises Sirius' voice even before he enters the kitchen. And as soon as he walks in, he immediately takes notice of them.

"Holy shit, McKinnon and Meadowes," he says, grinning broadly. "Haven't seen either of you in ages. Pete mentioned you four might be coming, but I honestly didn't believe him."

"Well we're here in the flesh," Marlene replies, grinning. "Tell Peter his alcohol selection for the night is stellar, by the way."

"You can tell him yourself," Sirius says, grabbing two cups and pouring gin into both of them. "We're all upstairs - Pete's got a great little patio up there."

"In that case, we'll follow your lead," Dorcas answers.

It doesn't occur to Lily until they're halfway up the stairs that if Sirius and Peter are out on the patio away from the main party, it's more than likely that James is there too. She sees him from behind before she sees his face, that instantly recognisable messy head of hair thrown back in laughter at something some girl is saying.

God, if she has to spend the night watching him flirt…

She tries to remind herself that she doesn't care, that she has no interest in him anymore and therefore shouldn't give a fuck who he talks to, but that doesn't stop the rolling wave of nausea as the girl rolls her eyes at him good-naturedly, the same way Lily used to roll her eyes at his antics years before.

The feeling comes to a sudden halt when Peter walks up next to the girl and kisses her cheek.

It takes all of a few seconds for Lily to realise that this must be Peter's girlfriend. And that James isn't flirting with her.

She curses her own nervous system for flooding with relief at that realisation.

"Prongs, brought your drink," Sirius says, and James suddenly turns in their direction. Lily quickly turns to Marlene and Dorcas, determined not to meet his eye.

They've had a nice run of completely ignoring each other these past few weeks; she's more than comfortable keeping that running for the rest of the night.

She does, however, feel a rush of satisfaction when she chances a quick glance in his direction and notices his eyes on her legs. She'd specifically picked this dress because of how they look in it - it's nice to know her decision was the right one.

Despite the very obvious rift between her and James, they all settle into the group pretty easily. Lily meets Peter's girlfriend - Alessia, who's exactly as gorgeous and kind as everyone said she was - and she's finally starting to relax listening to her tell a story when the patio's population suddenly expands by two.

Mary is here, and so is Benjy.

Somehow, in the mess of paying attention to and then pointedly ignoring James, she'd forgotten about this additional snag in the evening.

It's not so much that she doesn't know how to act here, that she doesn't know how to slip on a perfect mask of neutrality, but more that she would just rather disappear right now and not have to deal with this situation at all. She lives so many ruses, and right here, trying to enjoy the night, she doesn't want to have to think that hard about how to exist.

Between ignoring James and trying to make it seem like there's no history with Benjy, she's just… overloaded. It's not his fault, and it's not Mary's fault, and the two of them are practically glowing as Mary makes introductions to the group and Lily can just tell how right they are for each other by their body language alone, but god, if she's meant to handle all of this at once, she needs more alcohol than her conservative pour of gin.

She polishes off the drink in her hand like it's nothing. "I'm getting another drink - anyone want anything?" she asks the group, and when no one makes any requests, she leaves for the kitchen on her own.

She takes the long way to the kitchen, almost running into someone that she's positive was a year above them at Hogwarts but whose name completely eludes her, and when she gets there, she makes the same drink as before but with double the alcohol. Lily takes a sip, testing it out, when -

"Can we talk?"

She turns to see Mary standing there just outside the kitchen, sans boyfriend. She looks uncharacteristically timid, shifting her weight back and forth as she waits for Lily's answer.

"Yeah, sure."

Mary bites her lip, and when she speaks, it's quiet. "It's not… weird that I brought Benjy tonight, right?"

Lily suddenly realises, from the look in Mary's eyes, that Benjy probably told her everything. Mary knows. She knows about her and Benjy, about their history, and Lily almost wants to breathe a sigh of relief. At least someone knows. Somehow, the idea of not having this particular secret entirely hidden in her own mind feels like lifting a weight off her shoulders.

"Not weird at all," Lily answers truthfully. "I was a little caught off-guard, because I haven't seen him since we… called it off, but I promise, I'm not at all weirded out by the two of you being here together."

Mary still looks uncertain. "Really?"

"Mare, I promise you, what Benjy and I had going on was nothing. It was hooking up, and not a single thing more. I'm thrilled for him - for both of you. I wasn't ever interested in him like that, and you two look so damn happy."

The words are just as genuine to Mary as they were to Benjy when he'd first broken the news to her. Perhaps even more so now, now that she's seen the two of them making heart eyes at each other and witnessed how much better Mary is for him than anything she could've ever offered.

A smile cracks through Mary's features. "I am so damn happy."

And that's that. Somehow, the stress she'd felt about dealing with Benjy is gone now, because for once, it's not a secret she's bearing all on her own. Perhaps it's a little absurd that this one conversation with Mary has shifted her entire outlook, but maybe Lily's just so used to keeping so many fucking secrets all to herself that it's nice to not be the only one in the room who knows the truth, for once.

She goes back upstairs, and it takes her no time at all to slide back into the conversation. Alessia grins at her when she arrives, like they're the best of friends despite having met only half an hour and a drink ago, and Lily decides that she quite likes Peter's girlfriend.

It's a bit like old times, the way the same group of people migrates and changes throughout the evening, pairs and individuals disappearing and reappearing at random, but the same energy fills the space throughout.

Lily even chances another glance at James, when she's sure he's caught up in a conversation with Sirius and paying her no attention. He's in a fitted black shirt and jeans, a drastically different look than what she's used to seeing him in, but it suits him all the same. Though truthfully, looking like he does, she's not sure there's much that wouldn't suit him.

Marlene and Dorcas leave, claiming that they're off to get drinks and promising Lily a refill, but Lily knows her two drunk friends well enough to know that they're probably making out in a closet right about now rather than pouring her anything. Somehow, Lily even ends up in a completely cordial conversation with Benjy for a little bit, talking to him like they're old friends catching up rather than people who used to sleep with each other as a form of stress relief.

It is, for a while, blissfully and wonderfully normal.

Then someone downstairs starts shouting, and Lily realizes that they're counting down. It's almost midnight.

Lily's never cared much for the whole 'kiss as the clock strikes twelve' phenomenon. The only times she's participated have been with random strangers at bars, and once, when her New Year's was spent undercover, Rabastan Lestrange had kissed her cheek and Lily had had to actively resist the urge to gag.

Despite her general nonchalance to the tradition, however, she immediately realises that she's probably alone in that sentiment. Sirius and Remus are wrapped around each other as they count down, as are Peter and Alessia, and Mary and Benjy.

Three, two…

There's only one other person in the immediate vicinity who isn't clearly preparing for a midnight kiss with a partner. When her eyes land on him, his are already on her. It's magnetic and electric, the sight of him watching her sending a bolt of something straight through her.

There are loud cheers and heartfelt kisses in her periphery, and yet, for some stupid reason, the thing she rings in 1982 with is staring into James Potter's eyes.

 

---

 

The first practice of the new year is one that Lily's in charge of. Harrison hadn't given much explanation for it to any of the other assistant coaches, simply said they were to take orders from her for any of the practices on the schedule where she's listed as in charge, and fortunately, none of them have asked too many questions.

At least, not to her face. And if they're saying anything about it behind her back, then that's not really her problem.

She doesn't hold back; it's a rigorous practice to make up for the lost time of the holiday break, and she nearly takes a bludger from Gideon's bat while trying to run drills.

"Sorry, Evans!" he cries as she rolls, the bludger passing so closely that she can hear it whoosh by. When she rights herself, her ponytail has all but fallen out.

"No apologies, Prewett," she yells back. "That was a damn good shot."

She lets her hair fall fully down on her shoulders, messy and windswept. It'll be a nightmare to untangle, but that'll be a problem to handle later.

She scans the rest of the field to see what the other players are up to. And then she locks eyes with James, who was apparently already looking her way. He's a good distance across the field, but she can see the way he's frowning from here. It almost looks… concerned?

"Eyes on the Quaffle, Potter!" she shouts, and it startles him out of whatever trance he'd fallen into.

For some reason, having his eyes on her feels unsettling this time, an unwelcome reminder of New Year's. She's normally able to completely separate her on-pitch and off-pitch feelings with surgical precision, but they're bleeding together right now, and she doesn't like that one bit. It feels messy, muddled, confusing - all things she'd rather avoid.

She doesn't look at him again for the rest of practice.

But she takes her sweet time helping the other assistants pack up the equipment, and takes an even longer time detangling her windswept mess of hair in the shower, and that's the mistake that ruins it all.

When she steps out into the locker room, wringing out her hair, there's only one person left. The one person who always takes the longest to leave.

She tries to ignore him.

It seems that he has other plans.

"It was strange, seeing you at a party - given how much shit you like to give me for going out, I must admit I wasn't prepared for you to also be out at the same place I was. Seems a bit hypocritical, if you ask me."

She whirls in the direction of the voice, momentarily caught off-guard by the fact that this time, James is the one starting the conversation with her. Although conversation may be too kind a word for it; based on the wicked smirk on his face, he's looking for a fight.

"Well it's a good thing no one asked you then, isn't it?" she replies.

If she had any sense, she'd throw her bag over her shoulder and walk out now - leave it at that and avoid whatever disaster will surely await the longer she sticks around. Nothing good has ever come out of being left to her own devices around James.

And yet, she'll always stick around.

"Come on, Evans, I haven't heard anyone use that line since fourth year. Surely you can come up with something a bit more creative. Merlin knows you like picking fights - you can't just make it that easy for me to win them."

"I wasn't aware this was a competition."

His laugh is low and sharp. "Everything's a competition with you. Everything. Tell me you haven't been keeping score since my very first day at Puddlemere."

She hates that, even after all these years and all that distance, he still seems to know these sorts of things about her without even trying. Because yes, she needs to win. At what exactly, she's not even sure, but every argument feels like a point on a scoreboard, every moment of weakness a penalty shot. Even when they're not speaking, there's still a contest of who can act like they care less.

Her silence is his answer, and his grin turns downright devilish. "That's what I thought. I would ask which one of us won the point on New Year's, but I think the answer to that one might have been neither. I think that title goes to Benjy."

Of all the responses she could have predicted, all the things he could have said that she'd have a perfectly prepared retort for, mentioning Benjy is none of them.

Her relationship - or not-relationship, more accurately - with Benjy isn't public knowledge. Marlene only knows about the first time, and Mary only found out now because of her current involvement with Benjy, but she doesn't think either of her friends would actively give that information to James.

"How did you…?"

"How did I know?" he finishes for her. "Complete coincidence - I was walking through Pete's house on New Year's to get a drink and walked right by you and Mary discussing it."

She narrows her eyes. "You eavesdropped."

He brings his hands up in a gesture of mock-innocence. "No, I didn't. I really was just walking by at the time, and something about your voice is just really fucking hard to tune out."

She can't decide if that's meant as an insult.

"But anyways, how'd that one feel?" he continues, clearly taunting her. "Watching your former fuckbuddy kiss someone else at midnight?"

Her eyes weren't anywhere near Benjy at midnight. And James knows that too, given where his eyes were.

He's just pushing her, she knows that, seeing just how far he can go before she snaps. Just as she gets a twisted sort of thrill from hitting a nerve on him, from saying the exact thing that will get the strongest reaction, so does he.

It's a sadistic, fucked-up game they play, but she'll match his move with one of her own every single time.

"It didn't feel like anything," she tells him. "I don't know what impression you got from your little snooping moment, but Benjy and I were never a midnight kiss sort of thing to begin with. And even if we had been, trust me, I've been through far worse and made it out feeling nothing. Thanks for that, by the way."

There's a flicker of recognition on his face. It's the closest thing she's gotten to acknowledging their history, pushing closer and closer up against the line created by her own self-imposed rule that he'd never get to see just how much he wrecked her.

"Why do you care so much about Benjy anyways?" she presses. "Surely you're not jealous?"

He accused her of jealousy not too long ago - he might not enjoy it as much when she turns the tables back on him.

She expects a denial, but instead she gets: "And if I am?"

"Then you're about three years too fucking late." Her voice is low and dangerous, and she realises that, somehow, the space between them has gradually shrunk. She's only a few steps away from him now.

"I was never all that great at being on time."

The flippant tone makes her blood boil. She doesn't fucking get it, the way he runs so hot and cold all the time, making it impossible to understand what exactly he's feeling. She knows so much more about him than she did when he first reappeared in her life, yet he's no less of a mystery, no less of an unanswered question mark, no less of an endlessly baffling and infuriating presence.

"That's not the exonerating excuse you think it is."

"I wasn't trying to exonerate myself," he replies simply.

She shouldn't be surprised. James has never been anything but shameless.

She sighs in exasperation, running her hands through her hair. "I can't fucking stand you sometimes."

"Oddly enough, I think I'd picked up on that one," he answers coolly.

"So you just decided to throw the whole Benjy thing in my face, thinking you could… what? Hurt me somehow? I'm sorry that me not actually having feelings for the bloke ruined your fun, but - "

He cuts her off. "Oh no, Evans. You don't get to act like me picking a fight with you is so much different than what you've been doing constantly since the day I showed up here." There's anger in his voice now, a clear undercurrent in his previously deadly-calm demeanor. "Not when I know you do it for the exact same fucking reason I did."

"Which is?"

"Fighting with me is the most fun you've had in months."

He says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and in a way, it is. There are so many parts of Lily that feel like they've gone numb, like they've shrunk or disappeared or gone dormant, and somehow, these moments with James… they feel like waking up. They feel like coming back to life again, after a long stretch of nothing but going through the motions and doing what's needed to stay alive and afloat.

It's anger, lighting her up, but it's something else too.

"Those are some bold words to put in my mouth," she replies.

"That's a nice change of pace, isn't it?" he taunts. "Compared to you putting words in my mouth all the fucking time. You'd think giving you my whole story for the past three years would be enough to get you to stop that, but apparently not."

She decides not to point out that the story he's given her still has gaps - most notably, a Lily-shaped gap that she still can't figure out how to properly fill. "Why does it bother you so much when I do it? I'm sure at least half our Hogwarts class makes all the same sorts of assumptions about you - why is it such a problem with me specifically?"

If looks could kill, James' glare might as well operate as a Killing Curse to the chest. "You know exactly why."

She raises an eyebrow, a clear challenge. "No, I don't. Spell it out for me."

He takes three steps towards her, a burning look in his eyes. She takes a single step back, before realising she can't go any farther than that. Her back bumps up against the lockers. He's so close to her that she has to crane her head upwards to look at him properly, and she can smell something on him that's always been so distinctly James.

Her anger is tempered by something new, some completely different emotion, and she struggles to put a finger on it at first.

Then, James' eyes drop to her lips for a few seconds, and she instantly labels the new sensation, because she sees it in him too.

Desire. As unwelcome as it may be, it's definitely there.

And then he speaks, and it's both completely unrelated to anything of the argument they were having before this and somehow the most natural progression of it all at once.

"Do you want to kiss me as much as I want to kiss you?"

 

---

 

Seventh Year, June 1978

"One last round of patrols, Evans," James' voice comes up from behind her, far closer than she's prepared for. "Are you ready for the end of an era?"

"You make it sound so dramatic," she replies, turning around in her seat on the couch to face him. "Not at all like we're just wandering halls and telling kids to go back to their common rooms."

"That's some awful disrespect for the offices of Head Boy and Girl," he jokes.

"Lily could never disrespect the office as much as you have," Mary chimes in, before turning to Lily. "I'll probably be upstairs when you get back."

"Noted," Lily answers, before getting up and walking with James out the portrait door.

After a full year of patrolling together, they've really got it down to a science. They know the most efficient routes to follow, they know where to go to avoid the trick stairs, and they know how to keep each other entertained for the entire patrol.

But tonight, they're both quieter than usual. For all that Lily had joked about this not being a big deal, she's feeling oddly nostalgic as they walk through the halls. It's the last time she's ever going to do this, the last time she'll ever see this place. In less than twelve hours, she'll be gone.

Hogwarts has been her home for seven years - the idea of leaving it is… a lot.

"It's weird, the fact that we're never coming back here, isn't it?" James tears her from her thoughts. "Like, I keep trying to wrap my head around it, but I think some part of me just expects to come back next September, you know?"

Lily just nods. "Yeah, I keep feeling the same thing. Something about it feels like home, somehow."

They're walking side-by-side, so close that their shoulders are practically touching. It would be almost too simple for her to reach over and grab his hand with her own - she practically has to hold herself back to resist the impulse.

"I've got some of my best memories in this castle," he continues wistfully, looking around. "Remember that time we turned all the staircases in the castle into slides? That was fucking brilliant, if I do say so myself."

She giggles. "And no one could get to class because there was no way to get up from the Entrance Hall once you got to the bottom."

"A truly excellent side effect," he nods, before stopping in his tracks. "Evans, what do you say to a slight detour to tonight's patrol route? Perhaps a detour to the kitchens?"

She stops with him, considering it. "Shirking our responsibilities on the very last night of term, sounds like a good way to go out."

"Now you're talking," he says, winking at her in a way that makes her breath catch in her throat. (God, she's pathetic, isn't she?) "It's not like there's much of a point of us patrolling tonight anyways - I mean, what are we gonna do, take away House points for a House Cup that's already been awarded? Dole out detentions for next fall?"

He does make a pretty good point. "Alright then, a detour to the kitchens it is."

The kitchens are actually relatively quiet - since the term has come to an end, there isn't much cooking that actually needs to be done, so most of the house elves are probably busying themselves in other parts of the castle tonight.

They ask one of the few house elves left in the kitchen if they've got anything sitting around, and are immediately presented with a massive array of desserts apparently leftover from dinner.

They split a massive slice of treacle tart topped with vanilla ice cream, and Lily sighs contentedly at the first bite of the sugary combination. James also decides to conjure a record player, so there's soft music floating through the kitchen as they eat.

"We really could've just been doing this every time we were supposed to be patrolling," she tells him. "And instead, we spent the whole evening treacle-tart-less, witnessing entirely too many fourteen-year-olds feel someone up for the first time in their lives."

"Ah, but you can't forget about all the fights we've had to break up, those were just as fun."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh my god, the group of first years in full-on hand-to-hand combat? What a fucking time."

"This is absolutely a step up from that," he agrees in between bites. "Although let's be honest, you never would've skipped out on your responsibilities like that."

"Neither would you," she points out.

"You underestimate just how many things I've skipped in my life."

"Not this year," she replies, looking into his eyes. "Not when it mattered."

He laughs. "Can you pass that message onto my mum please? She's still giving me shit for that one summer when I was eight and I skipped every single day of Quidditch camp after begging to start going a year early."

Her eyes go wide at that, and she has to swallow another bite of treacle tart before she can respond properly. "James Potter? Skipping out on Quidditch? That doesn't sound right."

"I was caught up in… something or other. Honestly, I can't even remember at this point, but I guarantee it was something absolutely stupid. The Quidditch obsession didn't properly start until I got on the Hogwarts team. There's actually - god, I don't know if we've got it anymore, but at one point I couldn't decide if I was more into Quidditch or Quodpot so I decorated my entire bedroom with magazine cutouts about both. It was incredibly chaotic, and my dad took this picture of me sitting on my bed in the middle of it, looking so incredibly proud of this complete disaster I'd created."

She can picture it… this little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed, all the troublemaking spirit of the boy she knows now in half the body. She loves when he tells her about his past - it feels like he's entrusting her with these little stories for the future. For their future.

"Your poor parents," she says with a laugh.

"One of them took half the decorations out while I was sleeping one night. To this day, I still don't know which one of them is to blame for it."

She laughs again - god, she can't stop laughing tonight, something about James and this whole experience is making her positively giddy - before the song ends and a new one starts. This one's familiar, the opening chords immediately taking her back to memories of last spring.

"Oh my god, I love this song," she says, letting her eyes fall closed and swaying side-to-side to the beat of the music.

"You know, it's even better if you dance to it," he replies.

She opens her eyes to find that he's watching her. "What?"

He stands up from his seat, extending his hand to her. "Dance with me, Evans?"

Her heart does what can only be described as a somersault in her chest, and she almost falls out of her seat in the process of taking his hand.

Their hands somehow immediately find exactly where they're meant to be, and Lily can't help but marvel at how perfectly, how effortlessly they fit together like this.

She's not much for dancing, but for him, she will.

He leads them around the small space of the kitchen, clearly much more experienced in the art of partner dancing than she is, and she's honestly just happy to be along for the ride, doing her best to avoid stepping on his feet in the process.

Especially when he's smiling at her like this, like she hung the moon and all the stars in the sky and they're shining just for the two of them. In the pale light of the kitchen, his eyes practically glitter behind his glasses.

She could feel ridiculous, dancing with far too much formality for a room filled with pots and pans and humming ovens and dim icebox light, but for some reason, this feels perfectly right. Like dancing around the kitchen is just the most natural thing they could do, like this is the perfect environment for this, like everything about this moment is flooded with romance.

He twirls her around once more, and when they come back together again, they're even closer than before. And for some reason, by some unspoken mutual decision, the dancing stops there even though the music hasn't, and they're just standing there in the low light, hands still intertwined and bodies just a heartbeat apart.

She looks into his eyes behind those thick-framed glasses of his, a brilliant mess of brown and green and gold, and there's something in them that Lily can't put her finger on.

"I think this is the part where I kiss you," he says, so softly that Lily almost thinks she imagined the words.

But she didn't, because a moment later, he's making good on it, ducking his head down and meeting her lips with his own.

And it's… perfect. It's not fireworks and electricity - it's soft and stable and it feels like home. Just as their bodies fit together so effortlessly, like they were made to mold together, so do their lips. He tastes like the treacle tart they shared, but there's something infinitely sweeter about the taste because it's on him.

His hands drop from hers and find her waist, holding her tightly, like she might fade away if he doesn't keep her there. She winds her fingers into his hair, mussing it up the same way she's watched him do for years and the way she's caught herself fantasising about more than once in recent months.

That elicits a soft moan from him and… oh, there. That's the electricity, zipping all the way to her toes and flooding her with affection and desire. In his arms, she's his, he's made her his own, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Maybe this thing between them could be a masterpiece, she thinks to herself, before she lets herself get lost in him once again.

But if it could've been a masterpiece, if it ever was, James tore it all up. Because that night is where their history ends.

And Lily remembers it all, every second of their story that brought them to this point, all too well.

Chapter 11: x marks the spot where we fell apart

"Why the fuck would I want to kiss you?" The words come out of her mouth with nowhere near as much vitriol as she'd intended them to. Instead, she sounds breathy, needy, just the opposite of what she was trying to convey.

Because in contrast to what she's said aloud, her brain is rather unhelpfully providing a number of answers to that question, even if it was meant to be rhetorical. The first being that the rest of her body is showing all the signs of wanting exactly that - her heart thudding a rapid rhythm in her chest, her breaths coming in shallow gasps, the way that her whole body's practically keening into him even though he's the one who's got her pressed into the lockers.

And he's… so fit. Even though his shirt's on now, the tanned skin and taut muscles underneath it are permanently etched into her memory. His hair is completely windswept, and she wants nothing more than to run her fingers through it, because god, the perpetual sex hair is killing her. Being able to look but not touch has felt like a uniquely depraved sort of torture, and now, right in front of her, is the opportunity for relief.

And then, finally, there's the obvious answer - she's done it once before, and she knows exactly how good it feels.

Even though it's been three years, she still thinks about that kiss sometimes, thinks about the way it felt to sink her hands into his messy hair, thinks about how perfectly his body fit against her own, thinks about the way he held her like she was the last real thing in the world worth clinging to.

But despite what she feels was a complete failure of delivery, James seems to take her words to heart.

"Shit." He blinks a few times as he steps back, burying a hand in his hair. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have - "

He doesn't get to finish that sentence, because for some reason that's the thing that finally makes her lose what little self control she had left, and she steps forward, grabs his face with both of her hands, and presses her lips to his. He's frozen in shock for half a second, but then he's got one of his hands wrapped around her waist and he's kissing her back properly, and - fuck.

If the kiss she'd shared with him in seventh year was a perfect ten, then this one has broken the fucking scale altogether, like a shotgun shot straight to the heart. But unlike that kiss, there's no softness here. This one is crushing, bruising, bursting with unbridled intensity.

He's got her back against the lockers again in an instant, and one of his hands is buried in her hair while the other traces down her side, setting her skin on fire underneath his touch.

Her fingers slide underneath his T-shirt, feeling their way up the muscles of his abdomen, laying their claim to as much of his skin as possible. His skin is burning hot under her touch, mirroring exactly how she feels inside, the heat rapidly consuming them both. She feels the rapid rhythm of his pulse under his skin, sirens sounding in the beat of his heart.

James responds with a hand under her bum, hitching her left leg around his hips and pressing her into the lockers even harder.

She had chemistry with Benjy, for sure, but never had her desire for him - or for anyone really - felt this mind-boggling, this all-encompassing, this wholly consuming. She doesn't care about the fact that they're in a locker room, she wants all of him right here, right now. The heat of his kiss is making her dizzy.

She grinds her hips against him, relishing the way his groan resonates in her mouth as she does so, relishing the way he holds her even closer and proves that she's just as addictive to him as he is to her.

"Fuck, Evans," he says, and Lily whines at the loss of his lips against hers, but then he drops his lips to her neck and she gasps. He bites and licks at the sensitive skin, no doubt making a mark on her, and she winds her hands up in his hair again, tugging none-too-gently and no doubt making his already messy hair that much worse.

She's just starting to think about getting his shirt off, about getting her shirt off, and everything else with it, when a loud bang from the locker room entrance stops that train of thought in its tracks.

They jump apart like they've been burned, Lily with her back still pressed up against the lockers, and she can't help but notice the absolute state she's put him in. His normal composure is shattered, and there's something wild and untamed in his eyes that leaves her wanting more, wanting to see just how much farther he can go before she pushes him off the edge.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she hopelessly attempts to catch her breath, and she sincerely hopes that whoever just came into the locker room doesn't come in their direction. Even separated from each other, a first-year could probably still guess exactly what they were just doing. Because if Lily looks anything like James does right now… it's written all over the both of them.

"We should - I - I should go," she says breathlessly. She can't even think straight right now, her mind clouded with want and memories, her senses completely overloaded by him.

What she's just done is so fantastically, incredibly fucking stupid, and she's more than aware of that, and even so she's still actively fighting the temptation to just fucking Apparate with him back to her flat to continue whatever it is they've just started.

He nods, swallowing. "Yeah. That's… yeah."

Without another word, she scoops her bag off the nearest bench and throws it over her shoulder. As she walks out of the locker room, she gently runs her fingers through her hair, attempting to tame the worst of it, but there's no need for it anyways - she doesn't run into anyone before Apparating home. Whatever sound interrupted them must not have been a person.

Back in her flat, Lily catches a flash of her reflection in a nearby mirror. All the things she'd suspected about her appearance are entirely true - her hair is a mess even despite her attempts to settle it, her lips are decidedly red and kiss-swollen, and even her shirt is rucked up awkwardly on one side, either from the way she'd been pressed up against the lockers or from James reaching underneath it himself. She can't remember - the whole thing already feels like a foggy blur of lust and heady desire.

Somehow, though, she can't bring herself to regret it. Or to swear off ever doing it again, should the opportunity arise.

Because unlike kissing him in seventh year, when doing so had led to the ultimate exercise in getting her hopes up then having them ruthlessly crushed, she's under no false pretenses this time. If she kisses him again, or hell, manages to see it through to what she'd been dreaming of doing the moment he pressed his hips against her own, it will come with absolutely no delusions of love or romance.

It's better that way, she thinks to herself - after all, that's the same way she viewed everything with Benjy, and the closing of that chapter was the cleanest break of her entire life. Nothing messy or complicated.

Merely an escape.

 

---

 

Her deep blue dress robes are laced just a touch too tightly - her own fault, really. It's succeeded in pushing her tits up in a way that makes them absolutely unavoidable - more than one man in attendance at the Black manor for tonight's dinner party has held a conversation with her breasts rather than her - but it's also created the less-than-desirable result that she can only take the shallowest of breaths without risking breaking her ribs.

Her flute of champagne has also gone entirely flat - a side effect of nursing the same glass for almost two hours - and now, every time she takes a sip, she has to repress a grimace.

She's also spent the better part of the evening trying to be as far away from Walburga Black as possible, and for the most part succeeded, although possibly at the expense of some decent intel. But she just absolutely cannot stomach being within the woman's proximity for all too long - not when she's personally familiar with what she's done.

It's rich, that Walburga is the person she has the biggest problem with, given how many of the other purebloods here have done so many other despicable things, and possibly more of them than the Black family matriarch, but something about knowing the victim of her actions and calling him a friend makes her particularly disgusting.

She doesn't miss the way Sirius occasionally flinches when someone near him moves too suddenly, the way that every single jab and insult he makes about his family comes with the briefest flash of sadness in his eyes - the sort of flash most people would miss, if they weren't intimately familiar with the same sort of complicated feelings wrapped up in having a family that no longer feels like one.

And Lily, of course, is intimately familiar.

So her hatred for Walburga Black stands.

At one point, Lily knew the underlying reason for this particular soirée, but she's completely forgotten it by now. So many of the purebloods look for any possible excuse to throw together an event, to flash their wealth at one another like a group of preening birds, comparing who has the shiniest jewels and the priciest artwork on the walls and the best selection of rare alcohol.

Lily supposes she can't complain about that much though, because the perpetual pureblood ennui is what gives her so many outlets to extract information from them.

After an exceedingly long conversation that had started with useful Ministry information and quickly spiralled into tawdry gossip about the extramarital affairs of a few of the older pureblood men, Lily had retreated into a corner. She'd intended to use the time alone to think through a plan of action for the rest of the evening, but her plans of isolation were quickly dashed by the arrival of Will Rosier.

He's had a few more drinks than normal, which only means he's especially keen on her tonight, hanging on every vapid word that leaves her mouth as if they're honey dripping from her lips. She's got half a mind to tell him to go fetch, to test the extent of his puppy-dog level of devotion - she's well-aware that despite his more gentle nature, he's still a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, still raised on their strictly defined ideals of how men and women should behave.

She gets the feeling that bossing him around, making any sort of demand of him, just wouldn't do. At the very least, not while they've got an audience.

And Lily always prefers to have an audience.

At the moment, she's letting Will blather on about things while she tries to focus on her next steps for the evening. He's currently discussing professional Quidditch, explaining aspects of the sport like he's speaking to a five year old.

Lily, for her part, is feigning the role of Calypso Selwyn, who has no reason to know a single thing about sports. Outwardly, she's displaying the proper level of confusion and awe at his explanations; inwardly, she's finding the whole situation utterly hysterical, the irony of a casual fan at best unknowingly explaining the sport to a professional coach not lost on her.

She has to bite her tongue to avoid correcting him when he shares a statistic about the Wimbourne Wasps' last season that's just entirely incorrect.

When Will pauses to take a sip of his drink, she takes a moment to scan the room, sizing up the rest of the attendees. Moments like this make her feel almost predatory, seeking out her next target and immediately devising a plan to get to them.

And then she sees an unexpected figure that turns that whole notion on its head. She'd recognize that profile anywhere.

She'd known it by heart when she was younger, looked for his face across the room and across the park in Cokeworth, trusted him completely until he picked his side and shattered that faith.

Severus Snape.

Her blood runs cold.

She hasn't seen Snape in years, but she's got a powerful instinct that if anyone would be able to see her through her pureblood disguise, it'd be him.

Lily's never regretted her choice to use glamour charms instead of Polyjuice Potion; on the whole, the simple changes do the job just as effectively for people who weren't ever particularly familiar with Lily Evans' face to begin with, and there's a lot less hassle and stress involved. The glamour charms don't wear off like Polyjuice does - there's no threat of being turned back into her normal self in front of a crowd if she stays longer than expected.

It does, however, create the extremely narrow risk that someone - only someone who knows her well, knows her face and body enough to see past the obvious changes - could recognise her.

That's never been a problem until now.

Suddenly, the hunter is the hunted. The shift is sudden and instantaneous - one moment she's searching the room like a predator, sizing up her ideal target, and the next, she's the prey, desperately seeking an escape or a hideout.

"It's suffocating in here, I'm going to go get some air," she announces to Will, pulling her arm away from his.

He stops her before she can fully leave, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. She feels a powerful urge to aggressively wrench it away, to attack him in return for daring to pin her down, but no, she can't do that.

A pureblood lady can't do that.

"I'll come with you," he says, his grip softening slightly.

She doesn't want him coming with her. For one, it violates every rule she's set for herself in this game - being alone with someone, even someone as harmless as Will, is a threat.

She also just desperately wants to be able to let her guard down for just a moment, to stop thinking about what Calypso would do and say next and to have a moment to digest what this appearance means for Lily, but it doesn't seem that she's going to be able to get that. Her only options are to take Will with her or to not leave at all.

And between those two, the choice is obvious. She needs to leave here, needs a reason - and he's her getaway car.

"Thank you," she says, her voice coming out unexpectedly breathless, and it's then that Lily realises just how hard her heart is hammering in her chest.

This wild game of survival balances on a knife's edge - she's gotten damn good at steadying herself, but that doesn't mean the threat of falling isn't uniquely terrifying every time.

She takes Will's proffered arm, and he leads them out of the mansion. He moves through the crowd to the front door far more slowly than Lily herself would prefer, and it's her basest impulses screaming go, go, go as the enormous front door comes into her field of vision.

The outside air is icy cold, a sudden shock to Lily's very warm system, and as she steps into it, the sense of relief is palpable. She gulps the cool oxygen down like water.

Will must sense the change in her as well, because he looks over and asks, "Better?"

She nods. "Much."

The front porch of the Black manor shares the same Victorian elegance as the inside, with wrought iron shaped into intricate swirls, the shadows of which dance across the freshly manicured lawn by the faint light of a few nearby sconces. For a house that's invisible to any non-magical person that walks by it, the Black family has put an exorbitant amount of effort into ensuring that it flagrantly displays just how much money its occupants possess.

Will pulls a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, sticking it between his teeth. "Want one?" he asks her, reaching back into his pocket as if to pull out a second for her.

She shakes her head. "No, thank you. I'll light yours though," she offers, pulling her wand from her dress robes. The tip lights up like she's struck a match, and she presses it against the tip of the cigarette until it burns. When Will closes his lips around it, she lets her eyes drive back up to his - he's staring at her, almost curiously, as though the simple action of lighting his cigarette has blown his mind.

He exhales, sending up a cloud of pale grey smoke around him.

"How do you know how to light a cigarette if you don't smoke them?" he asks, and Lily's almost taken aback. She can't remember the last time anyone at any of these parties asked any sort of genuine question about her.

"Just because I don't smoke them now doesn't mean I never did," she tells him, and that much isn't actually fabricated, though the rest of the story will be. "I gave them up when I left Beauxbatons - English cigarettes just don't do it for me the way French ones did."

She is, truthfully, not even sure if there's a difference between the two. But she imagines Rosier will eat the lie right up, the sort of classic snobbery that most purebloods practice in one way or another.

And he does, nodding along as if her explanation makes perfect sense. "Care to take a walk in the gardens?"

Truthfully, she doesn't care to. Coming outside with Will was, in itself, a dangerous act, and they're only a few steps from the commotion of the party and the other bodies. And now, she's possibly violating that one steadfast self-imposed policy - never get cornered alone - even more.

But the alternative is to reenter the party, to potentially run into Snape again, and to have no idea what to do with that. Even if, by some miraculous stroke of luck, he's gone now, his presence has thrown Lily violently off balance, threatening to topple the very careful control she's worked so hard to master in these settings. The careful control responsible for keeping her alive. Unsteadiness, in that room, with those people… that danger is so much worse than anything being alone with Will Rosier could ever present.

"That would be lovely," she answers, taking his arm again.

The Black family gardens are a vision - unlike the Muggle gardens she played in so often as a child, magic can keep flowers blooming all year round, regardless of the temperature. Even in the freezing cold of early January, violets sit side-by-side with a vibrant display of white, red, and pink roses, paired with some magical blooms that Lily doesn't quite recognise.

She lets Will lead her, to play the part of the daring rescuer of the damsel in distress, though she's careful not to get too comfortable either. The gardens appear to be empty, but she knows all too well how easy it is for a threat to jump out when it's least expected.

She's already had one close call tonight; she will not have a second.

She might not survive a second, if she's not fully alert and prepared for it.

Will begins to talk again in between puffs of smoke, some resuscitation of whatever topic he'd been discussing before her sighting of Snape, and she finds herself nodding along faintly, feigning rapt interest in his every word.

At least he's stopped trying to explain Quidditch to her.

In the center of the garden, where it seems they're heading, there's a collection of trellises, all covered with blooming vines and blue and white flowers. They artfully frame a bubbling water fountain - a fountain that would actually be quite beautiful if Lily wasn't distinctly aware that the statuette in the centre of the water feature was meant to depict the triumph of magic over Muggles. Bellatrix Black had shared that particular detail with her quite gleefully the first time Lily had ever visited the Black manor as Calypso.

"You look particularly beautiful tonight, by the way," Will says beside her, startling her back into paying attention to him.

"I swear you say that every time you see me," she teases. It's easier to slip back into character this time - time has dulled the initial panic enough that she's able to play her role more easily again, to think about things other than the bare necessities of survival.

"It's true every time," he replies smoothly, coming to a halt in front of the fountains. "Every time I see you at one of these parties I'm struck by how a woman as stunning as you hasn't been snatched up by one of my compatriots."

Well, first of all, she's not a piece of meat meant to be snatched up by anybody.

She pities the women who are actually stuck in the position she's pretending to be in - treated as little more than a prize to be won amongst the men, a provider of heirs and a piece of arm candy meant to be dangled around until their youth fades and takes their traditional beauty with it.

"I have plenty of years with which to get married," she tells him simply. "My father and uncle found it more important that I, ah, exercise my social connections for a few years before entertaining courtship."

He's studying her fully now, grey eyes glittering in the dim light emanating from the main house. Will is only a few inches taller than her, so they're practically nose-to-nose when he turns to face her. She can smell the numerous Old Fashioneds and cigarette smoke on his breath when he exhales.

"It's been a few years now, hasn't it?"

She realizes what's about to happen just a second before it does, which is, coincidentally, about a second too late to stop it. His lips are on hers, and his hand is gently curling around her waist, and the only thing on her mind is how all of it just feels wrong.

Unbidden, her mind immediately jumps to a very different kiss just a few days prior. A far rougher one, in a far less romantic setting than a magical garden, but one that made her feel something. Sent a spark coursing through her veins, a vivid and wonderful reminder of just what it feels like to be alive - a stark contrast from the lifelessness of kissing Will right now.

She snaps back into herself then, and pulls away.

He's looking at her with a tenderness in his eyes that makes her want to vomit.

"Will, I - "

The fear returns then, because they're in a garden alone and she's got to choose her words just right - she's not sure how Will handles rejection and he wouldn't be the first man to do so violently. But really, he should've known better, should've known that he was nothing more than an excuse to run from the party tonight. Nothing was ever meant to come from this.

He smiles sadly, like he's already predicted what she's going to say. Like he almost expected it. "I get it. I'm not a Twenty-Eight heir."

He's coloured her rejection with reasons of his own, supporting arguments that she's never said herself but that make sense for someone of her stature - of Calypso's stature. It's a shallow justification, of course - that she'd only want to marry a firstborn son who's guaranteed to inherit the bulk of the family wealth - but it's one that fits comfortably with her character.

In another life, one where she was forced to live in the confines of this world, where this was less a ruse and more her reality, Will would truly be the best option among them. He'd lack the money and status of the firstborns she'd be meant to chase after, and he's certainly no beacon of respecting women, but some part of him really is a halfway decent soul.

Although she's not entirely sure he'd be quite so decent to her if he met her as herself rather than Calypso. Fortunately, that's nothing she'll ever have to worry about finding out.

"I really am sorry," she says. "But I've got to abide by my family's instructions."

He nods. He looks a little heartbroken - she almost feels a little heartbroken for him, because he's fallen for someone who doesn't even exist. Calypso isn't even a real person, and here he is, so ardently placing his affections with a contrived persona.

"I think it's best if I head home for the night," she continues. She's known for a while that returning to the party isn't an option, and now staying out in the Black garden isn't exactly one either.

A getaway car was never meant to last, after all.

"I'll head back to the party," he agrees.

"If anyone asks after me, you can tell them the truth," she tells him. "I wasn't feeling well, and decided to call it an early night."

She doesn't include the last few minutes in that story, because she knows Will will leave them out as well. That he'd kissed her in the garden wouldn't look favorably for either of them - Lily because it would constitute some attack on her virtue, and Will because he'd immediately been hit with the cold sting of rejection.

No, it's for the best that that detail is discarded.

"I'll do that. Good night, Calypso."

"Good night, Will," she replies. "I hope I'll see you soon."

He doesn't respond to that one. She doesn't expect him to - the bitterness of having his affections spurned is a bit too fresh for him to feel any desire to see her again anytime soon.

As he returns to the main house, she heads to the Apparition point. She keeps a deathly tight grip on her wand, perpetually prepared for the worst, as if Snape might suddenly jump out from one of the massive bushes surrounding the front gates, but her paranoia never comes to pass.

It's only when she steps inside her own front door, clicking the lock behind her, that she lets herself slide to the floor, unlacing the deathly tight grip of her corset, the sheer weight of the night finally taking her down.

Chapter 12: can we dance through an avalanche?

The Headmaster's Office is a place Lily prefers to avoid, if at all possible. She has no negative associations with it from her school days, but most of her communication with the Headmaster nowadays is done via letter or Patronus.

When an in-person visit is required, it's rarely for a good reason.

With a simple throw of Floo powder, a flash of green flame, and an annoying tug of her stomach, she finds herself exactly there.

She didn't bother warning him of her arrival, yet he doesn't seem to be fazed by her sudden appearance in his fireplace in the slightest. He doesn't even bother getting up from his desk.

"Miss Evans, a pleasure," Dumbledore says placidly. "Can I offer you some tea?"

Lily's not here for pleasantries, and she cuts right to the chase. "What do you know about Snape?"

A flash of recognition crosses his face. "Sit," he directs her.

She finds herself obeying his command instinctively. With anyone else, she'd almost certainly snap back at them for their avoidance of her question, but she respects the Headmaster more than most people.

Dumbledore also hardly reveals information except on his own terms, so she'll have to play his game to get what she wants from him.

She's not going to leave without a clear answer, but she'll sit down in one of the velvet chairs in front of his desk if it'll get her to that answer somehow.

"I must ask, why the sudden curiosity about Mister Snape?" He folds his hands on his desk. "From my understanding, you severed all ties with him during your Hogwarts years."

"I severed ties," she replies. "I'm not entirely sure if he severed them on his end in quite the same way."

That's probably an understatement. All throughout sixth and seventh years, after she'd made it quite clear that she wouldn't associate with him unless he swore off his Dark Arts obsession and found some friends less intent on exterminating people like her, she'd notice him watching her from afar.

He never stopped trying to talk to her either, despite being unable to do the one thing she'd asked of him. The one unforgivable thing.

"And you're curious about him because…?"

"He was at the Black's dinner party last night," she tells him.

That manages to catch him off-guard, and Lily catches the brief flash of shock on his features before they settle back into his usual expressionless state. She'd almost be pleased with that, the prospect of having thrown him off his rhythm, thrown something at the Headmaster that he hadn't predicted five moves ago, were it not for the fact that this unknown information could potentially get her caught.

It's not as satisfying when her life hangs in the balance.

"That is… unexpected," the Headmaster eventually replies.

"That's an understatement," she snaps. Her respect for Dumbledore will only go so far before her temper wins out. "He could blow my entire cover."

"What do you mean?"

Lily could throw something. She could pick up the shimmering glass orb on his desk that does Merlin-knows-what and fling it at the wall until it shattered to dust. It's only her most valiant efforts at self-control that stop her, that force her to keep this conversation civil even when she knows that Dumbledore is smart enough to recognize at least some of the reasons why Snape in particular poses a specific threat to her.

"For as much as you may have picked up between me and Snape, I'm not sure you understand the exact nature of our relationship, sir." The last word comes out with more force than necessary, lending an entirely sarcastic tone to her words. "Snape was… infatuated with me. More infatuated with the dark arts when given a choice, but infatuated nonetheless. I'm not completely unlike myself when I'm undercover - and if there was anyone who's studied me enough to recognize me through all of it, it's him."

Dumbledore appears to ponder that for a moment, and the long stretch of silence does little to settle the fiery impatience in Lily's veins.

"That does present a problem," he eventually relents, and Lily almost wants to slap the esteemed wizard upside the head, because no fucking shit.

"If I go back to another event without knowing what I'm getting myself into, I'm at risk of compromising this entire operation… not to mention essentially walking into a death trap," she replies. She can't tell from Dumbledore's words if he grasps the gravity of the situation - if he does, he's certainly not showing it. And while the Headmaster has never been one for showing his hand, at least some minor indicator that he recognizes the significance of this would be nice.

"You wouldn't compromise the entire operation - there's a reason I have safeguards in place, after all," he says simply, and while Lily is well aware of said safeguards, she doesn't exactly appreciate being spoken to as if she's fucking expendable. Dumbledore may be able to find a new spy, but she'd quite like to stay alive, thank you very fucking much. "But I'll have some intelligence collected on Mister Snape's activities and the extent of his involvement and share the results of those investigations with you as soon as is reasonable."

"I won't be going to any events until I get that information." She's steadfast on that point - both for the very real protection of her cover and in the hopes that it will ensure Dumbledore prioritises getting her the answers she needs.

"That's understandable," the Headmaster concedes, still looking delightfully unaffected by this whole exchange. "As I said, I will share what I learn with you as soon as is reasonable."

It's not fucking worth it to push the point with him any further. This is all she's going to get out of him, and it's going to have to be enough.

Then again, her standards are low. As long as she doesn't end up dead in the basement of Malfoy Manor, it'll be enough.

 

---

 

They've hardly got two weeks until the first match of the season, and Lily's quite sure she hasn't seen the Puddlemere team look any worse than they do today.

Ozzie's doing a piss poor job of actually keeping any shots out of the rings, which is made even more pathetic by the fact that none of the Chasers' shots are all that good to begin with. The three of them are off their rhythm in a way that they've never been before - not even when James first joined the team two months ago.

Usually, the team's close bond is an advantage - they operate as a unit across all their separate roles, and when one member of the team is at their peak, they're all at their peak. But the opposite also holds true - and despite not crossing paths at all, somehow the Chasers' and Keeper's poor performance are rubbing off on both the Prewett twins and Mari.

But the worst of all is James. Normally the one keeping the Chaser team glued together as one unit, today he seems determined to fuck up that cohesion in any way possible. He's almost exclusively passing to Charlie on his left, and he fumbles two easy passes from Corinne. Lily, frankly, has absolutely no idea what the fuck has gotten into him.

Usually, when practices are going this poorly, it's not really her problem. She's an assistant, merely there to help Harrison out, and ultimately he's the one responsible for whipping the miserable state of the team into shape or choosing when to call it a fucking day and try again tomorrow.

But now this is her team. She's the one in charge now.

James makes another pass to Charlie despite the play clearly requiring a right side pass. "Potter!" Lily yells. "Are you just trying to do the exact opposite of what the play calls for? Run it again, and run it right this time."

He does, at the very least, appear to recognize that he's playing like shit, and has the good sense to look a little bit ashamed about it.

The awareness doesn't stop him from throwing an absolutely terrible right side pass the next time around, a jerky sort of throw that's nothing like his usual easy flowing but lightning fast movements, practically sending Corinne spinning out in an attempt to catch it.

What the hell is going on with him? Lily hasn't seen him play this sloppily since their Ravenclaw match in seventh year, and that was only because he'd had two ribs broken three hours into the game and stubbornly refused to sit out the rest of it.

Gideon is distracted by the dreadfulness of the Chasers' play, and nearly takes Lily out with a Bludger.

Fucking hell.

She does everything she can think of to get them back on track for the day, to get at least something good out of what is clearly a trainwreck of a practice, but even with some marginal improvements, she eventually accepts that it's just a lost cause and that drawing out the miserable experience any longer isn't going to amount to any great breakthroughs.

There's a decent chance one of the other assistants will make a point of complaining to Harrison about it, whether out of an opportunistic attempt to make Lily look bad in front of him or out of nothing more than an innocent grumbling, she doesn't know, but she does know she's going to make a point of updating Harrison on today's practice before anyone else can.

"I want every single one of you to go home and figure out how to reset," she tells the team as soon as they get into the mid-air huddle. "I don't care how and I don't care what it takes, but tomorrow's session will be better."

She'll come up with some particularly brutal ground conditioning for them if it's not.

The team lands and trudges off to the showers, the other assistants get to work in putting things away, and Lily takes a couple laps around the pitch to clear her head before she proceeds any further.

It's always been inevitable that she'd have a practice like this - one where everything goes to shit while she's at the helm - but she wasn't expecting it to happen quite so early on. It's nothing she can't recover from, nothing the team can't recover from, but her good name with Harrison - or god forbid, Worthington - might not bounce back as quickly if she doesn't do the proper amount of damage control and sucking up.

She lands and does her part of the post-practice clean-up quickly, before stalking off in the general direction of the locker rooms. She'll keep any sort of dead giveaway expression off her face the moment she walks in, because the team doesn't need to see her in any sort of state, but there's no denying the emotional build-up underneath the surface.

The simple matter is that she's incredibly frustrated, and she desperately needs something to take that energy out on.

Or, perhaps, someone.

It's really a testament to her ability to keep her professional and personal feelings in completely separate bubbles that she's even entertaining this thought, because professionally, she's pretty sure James is the primary reason today's practice was a disaster, and she's more than a little annoyed at his sudden terrible performance, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that ripping his clothes off seems like a very good way of channeling her frustration.

He's nowhere in the main area of the locker room when she gets there, and that's probably for the best anyways - it's not like she can exactly drag him off into a closet or something when there are this many other Puddlemere players and staff around.

No, she's just going to have to trust that he's going to be the last one out of the locker room, like always. Though she's not feeling particularly patient right now.

She grabs her clothes from her bag and makes her way to the showers. She's quick about the whole process, only staying under the hot water as long as she needs to, thinking about something else entirely.

Due to her late start at showering, however, there's only one other shower left running when she turns her own off.

Finally, something goes right today.

She dresses slowly, waiting until she hears the lone running shower turn off. It's a game of timing after that - right as James pulls the shower stall door open, she's in front of him.

He doesn't even get to step out; she steps to him first, his warm body fully flush against her own. Even through his shirt and joggers, he's a furnace, and she doesn't know if that's from the shower or just his natural state of being.

"I want you to - "

She doesn't get to finish the sentence. He cuts her off abruptly, but she can't even be annoyed about it, because he cuts her off with the very thing she'd been on the verge of asking of him.

His mouth meets hers, and just like the last time, there's no slow, gentle build to this kiss. It's hot and heavy and all-consuming from the very start. It burns every last rational thought from her brain, which is exactly what she was looking for.

He tugs her into the shower stall, letting the door shut behind them, and lets himself be backed into the wall.

His hands slide down her body, seemingly touching as much of her as he can, before they find steady purchase on her ass, and Lily vaguely recognizes that he's tucked his hands into the back pockets of her pants.

She tightens her grip around his neck as his tongue runs across her teeth, and she lets herself burn, burn, burn, happy to spend forever in this moment but also desperate for something more.

It would be utterly foolish to fuck in the locker room - perhaps less so since they're tucked into a shower stall this time instead of right in the middle of the main area of it, but still stupid. Still reckless.

But right now, recklessness tastes like the sweetest release and James' body against hers feels like a sacred oasis.

So fuck doing the smart thing.

Her fingers claw at the soft cotton of his T-shirt. She starts tugging it off of him recklessly, not overly concerned with gentleness, and suddenly he's breaking the kiss, eyes closed and head leaned back against the tile as he hisses in pain.

Lily slows her movements, gingerly pulling up the fabric and finding exactly what's got him reacting like that - red, angry claw marks spreading across his entire left side. They look fresh.

Slowly, through her kiss-fogged haze, a few things start to make sense.

"Did you go to the team Healers about this?" Lily asks, fingers hovering over the wounds. She wonders where they came from - Quidditch may be a contact sport, but this clearly wasn't caused by a collision with a bludger.

He scoffs at that. "Yeah, because that would go over well. How exactly do you propose I explain why I've been fucking mauled?"

He's got a fair point.

"How did you?"

"Evans, you're a smart witch, don't tell me you've forgotten the secret I told you in seventh year," he replies, almost flippant.

He told her a lot of secrets in seventh year, so it takes her a moment to piece together which one he's referring to, which one would end with him injured like this.

And then it hits her. He's… he's still doing that?

"You still do that?" She looks up from his injuries and into his eyes.

He gives her a look like the answer should've been obvious. "Yes, of course I still do that. The transformations didn't suddenly just stop as soon as we graduated."

"Oh," she replies softly, her hands dropping away from his side. "I just figured - "

He scoffs when she trails off, obviously having filled in the blanks on his own. "For fuck's sake, why are you so set on this idea that I'm totally different from who I was in school? That all my good qualities just immediately evaporated as soon as we left that castle?"

Because you left me, she thinks to herself, but she doesn't say it aloud.

"I never - "

"It was very heavily implied," he interrupts, glaring at her. "God, it's the constant undertone every single fucking time you talk to me. I've told you the truth, I've told you just how much the stories going around about me got it twisted, and yet you still seem to believe them."

She opens her mouth to argue, but he cuts her off again. "Honestly, Evans? I think you're projecting. I may have changed since we graduated, sure, but you're a totally different person. The Lily I knew wasn't so cold and distrusting of literally everyone. She saw the best in people, even if they didn't always deserve it, and she believed people could always be better. She made them want to be. And now? Now, it's like you're made of ice."

He has a point there. Back then, she'd been happy, golden; and now, she's deep blue, frozen. But what he seems to miss is the fact that he played such a pivotal role in that transformation.

"I'm protecting myself," she replies sharply. "Because as it turns out, when you see the best in people when they don't deserve it, all you're doing is giving them one more chance to hurt you."

His brow furrows.

She decides to spell it out for him. On one hand, she hates drawing attention to the fact that she gave him so much power to hurt him, but on the other hand, he's clearly never going to figure it out on his own. The spoiled boy wouldn't know what that betrayal's like.

"I saw the best in you for years," she tells him. "And… god, I fell for you so hard. And then, stupidly, I let myself think you felt the same way. But it turns out all you wanted me for was a fun little snog in the kitchens and then you dropped me as soon as we left that castle. So excuse me for questioning your character after that."

His mouth falls open as she speaks, and it takes him a few tries to form a response. "I - you - that's not what happened."

She laughs involuntarily, the sound high and mirthless. "Of course that's what happened, I was there."

He can't argue facts with her. He can't tell her that things that happened right in front of her eyes didn't happen. He can't.

"I - I wasn't supposed to kiss you that night," he replies, as if that's somehow supposed to make things better.

She'd already gathered that he sees that night as a mistake somehow, she really doesn't need him slamming that fact in her face.

"Well you did, so you have to live with the fucking consequences. You can't just pretend it didn't happen just because you didn't want it to."

Now it's James' turn to laugh bitterly, and it catches her off guard. "Not wanting it couldn't be farther from the truth. You can't seriously think I didn't want to kiss you that night."

"I can't?" she asks disbelievingly, the slightest note of a challenge in her voice. "I certainly don't know how else I'm meant to interpret it."

He rakes his hand through his still-wet hair. "That kiss was… I'd thought about kissing you like that for the better part of seven years."

Of all the things she expected him to say in this moment, that was none of them. There's a soft earnestness to it that knocks the wind out of her for a moment, her breath stuttering to an abrupt halt in her chest.

She's torn between two versions of herself - the first, that wants to believe him, that wants to trust his earnestness and believe in him and in his words, and the second, that's screaming at her to run away, to put her walls back up before it's too late and before he gets the chance to break her again, to break her like they always do.

"You thought about it for seven years, and it happened, and then you ran away," she replies, her tone flat and betraying nothing of the war waging in her mind.

"I… I panicked. I just… I felt so much and I figured there was no way you would ever feel that too, so I just… I don't know. I thought it was better if I just let things end there, before I got in too deep and you realized what you'd gotten yourself into. Before it had the chance to destroy us both."

There's a long silence between the two of them, and the depths in James's eyes suggest there's just as much turmoil going on in his head as there is in hers.

But there's something wrong with what he's saying. Because there's no way he wouldn't have known what that kiss meant to her at the time. She'd told him exactly what it meant, written it out in so many different ways, sent every single one of them to him.

He would've known. Unless -

"Did you even read them?" She hates how her voice sounds, raw and vulnerable.

"What?"

"The letters I sent that summer. Did you read a single one of them?"

He just stares at her in stony silence, the barest hint of guilt on his face, and it's as clear as if he'd shouted the answer at her.

The war in her mind declares a victor, and the churn of emotions is consumed by a cold, dull rage as her walls go up again. He can't, he can't claim to have thought his feelings for her outweighed hers for him when he didn't even read any of the letters that would've disproven that theory, that would've shown that she'd bared her heart to him.

He doesn't have that right - not now, not three years too late.

"That's what I thought," she replies, any vulnerability once present in her voice replaced by pure ice.

She wants to walk away then, to let her anger at him take over, but one last curiosity keeps her where she is.

"Why is this any different?" she asks, gesturing between the two of them. Despite their arguing, they're still practically pressed up against each other.

"What do you mean?"

"You ran away back then. You've now kissed me twice in the past week, and you're not running away now."

He has an answer far faster than she expected him to. "You don't feel anything for me now."

Sometimes she really wonders if he thinks at all about how his words sound before they leave his mouth. The fact that it's somehow better to him that she feels nothing for him than it was when she felt everything for him makes it seem exactly as she'd suspected - that he was just using her then and he's just using her now. At least now it's mutual, but…

"You… you do realize that makes you worse, right?"

He sighs, apparently unbothered by her sardonic tone. "You were always going to destroy me, Evans. This was always going to drown me. At least this way, when the water comes rushing in, I'll be the only casualty."

She can't wrap her head around it when he speaks like that. She finds it so hard to reconcile all the evidence about him, everything he's done, with words like those. She's gotten so accustomed to the narrative in her mind that James never really cared for her like she did for him, and it seems that every time he opens his mouth, he sends that crystal clear conclusion deeper and deeper into the mud.

She decides not to address it now, and instead looks back down at his wounds. "At least let me - I've got a salve in my bag that should help with the worst of that."

She leaves the shower stall first, but his footsteps just behind her confirm that he's following.

He sits on the bench behind her as she rifles through her bag for the blue ceramic jar of healing salve - a concoction of her own invention that does the job far better than any of the pre-mixed ones they sell at apothecaries.

When she turns around to face him, he's got his shirt pulled up to expose the wounded area again, and Lily tries not to think about how, just a few minutes ago, she was kissing him and trying to pull that shirt off herself.

She kneels down in front of him, opening the jar and dipping her fingers in to grab some of the thick, pale blue paste.

"It might sting a little," she warns him just before beginning to dab it along the deepest part of the cut, and his sudden sharp intake of breath confirms that it does.

She works wordlessly, his skin burning hot under her fingertips in comparison with the cool salve. The locker room is silent but for the sound of their breathing, and Lily throws herself completely into methodically covering every inch of damaged skin. The salve won't heal his injuries entirely - that would require a healing spell far beyond Lily's amateur capabilities - but the skin does start to stitch itself back together, the healing process accelerated by a number of days and the redness fading into scars. By the time she's done, most of the jar has been depleted, but his injuries look markedly less severe.

His eyes are fixed on her - they have been the entire time she's been working, she's pretty sure - but it still knocks the air out of her lungs when she looks up at him and their eyes lock. It burns something inside of her, something reckless and heavy and utterly starving.

She, stupidly, thinks about kissing him again, about resuming what they were doing just a few minutes ago, despite everything that has been said between now and then. She shouldn't even want to be in the same room as him, and yet she, stupidly, still wants him pressed up against her.

Gravity keeps her there, kneeling in front of him, drowning under his gaze.

"I'm not usually this careless," he says quietly, breaking the heavy silence in the air.

A disbelieving sort of scoff escapes Lily's throat unbidden at that, quiet but still very audible in the silent room. Because he is careless, has always been, and while she'd once let herself believe it was an endearing trait, it has more often than not made her want to strangle him, especially as of late.

"Not with this, at least," he clarifies, heading off Lily's reply before she even gets the chance to speak it. "I've - we've been doing this for so long that I know how to… I let myself get distracted, and I don't normally do that."

"If it happens again, find me," she tells him, mentally shoving all of her stupidity back into the corner of her brain where it belongs, all business and all Quidditch once again. "Don't make me witness another practice like that."

"It won't happen again."

That's not good enough for her. She gives him a look that tells him as much.

He sighs. "If it does, I'll find you."

She just gives him a nod at that, then backs away, screwing the lid back onto her nearly-empty jar and placing it back in her bag. The distance does her good, clears her brain even more. But even then, even away from the magnetic pull that seemingly affects him just as much as it does her, she knows that there's nothing in the world that can stop this. Nothing in the world that can cut off what they've started.

She knows where this goes, and she has a bad feeling.

Chapter 13: no rules in breakable heaven

Notes:

hello, yes, we remember the 'eventual smut' tag on this fic? we've reached eventual.

The next practice is the polar opposite of the last one - and Lily won't pretend that James isn't a huge part of that switch. Which, she supposes, makes sense; this time around, he's not nursing a collection of barely-held together open wounds under his jersey.

Honestly, with the knowledge of the injury he'd been laboring under, his abysmal performance last practice almost seems impressive, if only because it would probably have knocked most anyone else straight off their broom, if they'd even bothered to mount it in the first place.

But it's nothing compared to this. As if to compensate for how miserably he'd played while nursing an injury, he plays better than she's ever seen from him.

When he puts his full effort into it, James is fucking incredible. He's good, he's always been good, but she can see so much more than just 'good' underneath the surface of it. He flies like it's more natural than breathing, handles the Quaffle like it's little more than an extension of himself.

In a few years, with a little more polish and practice, he might just be the single greatest player in the League.

She doesn't voice any of that while coaching though, simply hits him with the same clipped encouragements she gives every other player when they do something well, but the knowledge has firmly taken root in her mind.

It would be a lie to say that watching James fly like that isn't wildly attractive, because Lily's always been turned on by competence.

But she has no intentions of chasing after him - not after how they left things last time. She doesn't trust him, doesn't trust her own responses to him, doesn't want to get tangled up in that mess.

The things he'd said to her… James has never been a liar, and though there are many things she doesn't recognize in the post-Hogwarts James, she's loathe to believe that that's among the changes.

But it doesn't make any sense. She refuses to let herself spend too long dwelling on it, because Merlin knows she's exhausted far too many hours thinking about him.

And so she keeps her distance at the end of practice, leaves as early as she can, eliminating the temptation of him entirely.

 

---

 

Lily really isn't sure when she stopped keeping track of her own birthday.

It's not like she has any sort of bad memories wrapped up in birthdays - they've all been fairly nice, not earth-shatteringly incredible but never awful either - but for some reason she just… no longer cares much about celebrating them, or even acknowledging them.

It was one thing when she was at Hogwarts, and Mary and Marlene and Dorcas and even the Gryffindor boys demanded some degree of fanfare over the day, but now, without the forced proximity of it all, Lily has no interest in organizing anything herself.

As such, she doesn't even think about the fact that she's turning twenty-two until Mari greets her when she shows up to the compound for practice, grinning broadly.

"Happy birthday, Lily!" she exclaims far too loudly for seven in the morning, drawing the attention of the rest of the players and staff.

Lily dislikes all of the eyes suddenly on her, but she forces a smile on her face and an expression of gratitude when the rest of the room echoes Mari's birthday wishes. It's all fairly perfunctory, and though she doesn't think herself particularly disliked by anyone at Puddlemere, she just also doubts any of them actually care that much that she's another year older.

Harrison is back in town and leading the practice today, which allows Lily to sink back into her more traditional role again, zeroing in on little details and leaving the big picture to someone else. She likes running practices - at least when they go well - but there's something comfortable about merely being an accessory to the smoothly-running machine that is a practice run by their Head Coach.

Honestly, no wonder he's being tapped for the National Team.

She thinks the birthday subject has run its course, not to be brought up again, but it resurfaces unexpectedly after practice ends and the locker room fills up again.

"Got any fun birthday plans lined up?" Ozzie asks her, throwing a towel over his shoulder.

Considering she'd barely remembered the day in the first place, the concept of making plans for it is laughable. "Nah," she replies.

It's the wrong answer, apparently.

"Seriously?"

She shrugs. "I never really do anything for my birthday."

He looks at her like she's grown an extra head - she'd been invited to a birthday party of his a few months back and it had been a whole grand affair, so she knows her mindset is entirely foreign to him.

"We're going to fix that then," he declares solemnly. Then he turns to the rest of the busy locker room. "Oi!" he shouts, and once again Lily feels an entire room of eyes swivel towards her. "Since Evans is too modest to plan a birthday party for herself, I'm taking the job upon myself. Tonight, 8 o'clock, at Younger's - be there."

And that's what brings Lily, several hours later, to the entrance of a bar on the other side of town, the glow of the multicolor lights inside casting flashes of red, blue, and green against her combination of a black deep V-neck top and skirt. Though she's not entirely sure how much she actually wants to be here, she knows Ozzie will absolutely never forgive her if she doesn't show up to the "party" he'd put together, and if she's being entirely honest, she's a bit touched that he actually even cares that much.

What's even more surprising is the fact that, when she walks into the bar, she's greeted with the sight of the entire Puddlemere team and a decent chunk of the coaching staff.

After Ozzie's announcement, Lily had kind of assumed the nods of assent in the locker room were just meant to appease Ozzie, but that a number of them would find excuses not to show. She'd assumed they wouldn't care about coming to a celebration for her all that much.

But instead, she's got this. Corinne is on her feet in an instant, offering to buy Lily a drink, and Lily's still so taken aback by this whole assembly that she doesn't even do anything other than nod dumbly.

The drink that's eventually pressed into her hand is sweeter than anything Lily probably would've ordered for herself, but it's not terrible either, and she finds herself slowly sipping it as she manages to finally enter the general realm of conversation. There's a packed booth consisting of a mix of team and coaches, and Fabian all but insists she take his seat in it, choosing instead to walk to the other side of the bar and flirt with one of the bartenders.

It's the first time she properly notices James, who is dressed in a fitted button-down artfully rolled to the elbows such that his arms are practically a work of art in and of themselves, his hair tousled in a way that she's certain he had to at least spend some time styling. There's simply no way it looks that fucking good on its own.

Both of these observations are ones that she has absolutely no intention of pointing out to him, because Merlin knows he doesn't need another boost to his ego, nor does she feel charitable enough to give him one.

He simply looks over at her and nods in greeting, and she notices his valiant effort (and eventual failure) to only look at her eyes and not any lower.

The top she'd picked out for tonight is one that rarely ever enters circulation - given that most of her more revealing clothes have to be dress robes for that particular audience and the fact that, outside of pureblood social events, she rarely dresses up more than absolutely necessary, the lace-up top with the bell sleeves - a gift from Mary a few years ago - doesn't often see the light of day. But it does suit her particularly well, even if it means she's forced to go without a bra for the night, and it had seemed fitting to bring out for a night like tonight. If she's being forced into celebrating her own birthday, she might as well do it properly.

Lily chats mostly with Gideon and two of the other assistant coaches, but she manages to overhear Charlie - not a difficult feat, given that the Chaser's already-loud voice seems to gain volume with alcohol consumption - in conversation with James.

"I mean, this is probably just the first stop for you tonight, isn't it? You've got some wild plans after this, I'm sure."

Lily doesn't miss the way James' eyes flit to her for the briefest of moments - too quickly for anyone else to notice or make anything of it, but just long enough that she knows it was intentional.

"I hope so," he replies, grinning like a devil.

She turns to the bar just in time to watch Fabian wink at the bartender, trying not to think too much of James' comment. Here, in this bar, James is in his natural element, his 'bad boy' persona on full display. A shiny toy with a price so high she shouldn't even consider paying it.

She won't let herself be charmed by the same tactics he uses on everyone else.

Corinne picks that exact moment to come over and drag Lily out to the dancefloor, and while she would normally rather be anywhere but in the middle of a group of people moving along to the pounding beat of whatever wizard band is responsible for this music, right about now it's a welcome distraction.

 

---

 

As the night wears on, the alcohol starts flowing more freely, and the energy of the bar gradually descends into greater chaos, Lily plots her exit. It's not a particularly complicated endeavor, because it's all too easy to let herself melt into the crowd, gradually moving closer and closer to the door until finally, she can take those last few steps to the exit freely.

Going home from here is the most obvious option, given the late hour and given that she has absolutely no intention of continuing the night at any other bar, but that's not where she Apparates to.

Instead, when she opens her eyes, she's staring up at the Puddlemere practice facility, the familiar building made unfamiliar by the glow of moonlight. Since it's after hours, she has to sneak in through the gate to get to the facility, but the facility's security charms recognize her as an authorized presence and remain silent.

She's only been here at night a handful of times, and she hasn't been alone in any of those instances, so it's hardly given her occasion to admire the facility itself, the subtle beauty of a pitch that houses the sport she's somehow channeled most of her life into.

Her broom is locked in the shed, so she retrieves it, overtaken by the urge to be airborne. Any drink in her system is fully gone now, replaced by the thrill of being here.

She's not dressed for flying, but she's alone in the stadium, so it doesn't particularly matter if her skirt gets blown up a bit by the wind. A Sticking Charm could be useful, she knows that from occasionally flying in her Hogwarts uniform before she'd been issued Quidditch practice gear in seventh year, but she doesn't bother tonight.

As soon as she takes off from the ground, feels that familiar rush of wind through her hair, she feels more free than she's felt all night.

The Warming Charm she cast on her body keeps her from freezing in the January cold, but the icy air still fills her lungs when she breathes it in. It's sharp, feels like it's slicing her from the inside out, and she relishes the sting. It's a painful but somehow lovely reminder that she's so wonderfully alive.

Alone on the pitch, with nothing sounding in her ears but the wind and her own heartbeat, she feels like she's truly coming back into herself. The physicality of it, the precariousness of her position far above the ground, the familiar feel of her broom underneath her - she's aware of every little detail of her body, every single sense heightened.

It's glorious. It's the sort of high she could seek at a bar like the one she just left, were she a different type of person. But she's here instead, chasing a fever dream high in the quiet of the night, through nothing but solitude and pure adrenaline.

Time loses meaning as she laps around the pitch, letting herself drown in the sensation of flying, focusing on absolutely nothing else. It's this, the blissful emptiness, that she's so rarely awarded, that might perhaps be the greatest birthday celebration of them all.

She comes down to the ground entirely ungracefully - while technically correct landings are something she's more or less mastered, there's something about tumbling to the ground and letting herself fall all the way there that just feels magical to her. It feels like the early days of learning to fly, where proper technique was the farthest thing from her mind and James had convinced her to push any ideas of perfection far from her mind.

It's a freedom from control she's so rarely awarded.

Eventually, the cold of the ground starts to seep through her rapidly-fading Warming Charm, and Lily takes that as a sign that she should probably retire for the night. It's late, anyhow - not so much so that she thinks any of the Puddlemere team and staff will have gone home for the night, but late by her own standards.

She takes one more look around the abandoned pitch before walking towards the shed area.

"You left your own birthday party early."

She nearly drops her broom when she sees James come out of the shadows, seemingly out of nowhere. How long has he been here?

Rather than show her surprise, she puts on a mask of casual ease, hiding how hard her heart is suddenly hammering in her chest at his sudden arrival.

"I've never been much for parties," she shrugs, walking past him to drop her broom off in the storage shed.

It's true enough. She gets enough of them from the Order - real life is supposed to be a break from that. And while the Puddlemere team and staff are notably better company than any of the purebloods she's forced to interact with at those events, and she's still grateful to Ozzie for dragging everyone out for the night, it doesn't change the fact that they're just not really her thing.

"That's true, I suppose." He laughs under his breath, like he's got a rather specific memory on his mind.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, and the words come out more pointed than intended.

She's entitled to that, though. He did just appear out of nowhere - and last she'd seen him, he'd still been at Younger's, deep in conversation with the Prewett twins. Fabian had in fact successfully managed to charm the bartender, and she'd just poured them a round of shots, but Lily hadn't missed the fact that a shot glass was conspicuously absent from James's hand.

He runs a hand through his hair, looking around the pitch. "This seemed like the most likely place you'd run off to. I guessed correctly."

She taps her wand against the broomshed door, unlocking it. "So you did. Still doesn't explain why you're here though."

She's testing him, goading him into saying the unsaid. His words, and the glance that accompanied them, from earlier tonight ring in her ears - she hadn't dared let herself put any credence in them, half-suspecting they were nothing more than one of his games, a knife aimed to cut through the bone, but here he is chasing after her, those words coming to fruition anyways.

"I would've thought it was obvious," he answers, tucking his hands into his pockets. "You can tell me to leave, but - "

She doesn't.

Already, her blood is rushing with anticipation - remembering the feel of his body against hers and the intoxicating taste of his lips. This time, he'd come for her.

Oh, she wants this. She wants him.

He follows her into the broomshed, dutifully standing just inside the doorway as she tucks her Comet into the appropriate spot. His politeness sets off a fire in her to be anything but.

So as soon as her broom is put away, she crosses the room, places her hand in the center of his chest, and unceremoniously shoves him against the wall of the shed.

An almost animalistic growl escapes his throat at that, and a thrill courses through her body at the sound. It makes her feel powerful, knowing that she's got this sort of effect on him.

They pause like that for a moment, frozen in time. His pupils are blown wide, practically searing a hole in her skin as he takes in the sight of her. It's greedy, hungry, and she feels every piece of that starvation in her very bones.

And then he's roughly grabbing the sides of her face and capturing her lips with his own. It's fantastically messy, an endless tangle of lips, teeth, and tongues, and she's pretty sure James bites her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

She doesn't care. Worse, she likes it.

His hands move lower, pulling her so close to him that there's not a breath of air between them, so that Lily can feel him, can feel just how much he wants her already. He's a wall of solid athletic muscle, and his body heat burns her through every piece of clothing they've still got on, every piece of clothing she suddenly wants far gone.

As if James is reading her mind, he's suddenly grabbing the bottom of her shirt, as if to take it off her but not fully committing - at least, not until she pulls her lips away from his for long enough to give a subtle nod, a push of encouragement to yes, please, rip it off. And then he's pulling her shirt up and over her head, and for the first time all night, Lily's intensely grateful that the top necessitates going braless, if only for the look of wonderment that crosses James' features as he takes in the sight of her exposed tits for the first time.

"Fucking hell," he mutters, almost angrily, but with an entirely undisguised desire as well. The words coil in her abdomen, a rush of pleasure in their own right.

Her lips find their way to the side of his neck, and his hands find their way to her breasts. And as she sucks and bites at his skin and ensures that he'll have multiple marks as evidence of their tryst tonight, he teases her, kneading at the delicate flesh and swiping his thumb over her already-hardened nipples.

They're desperate, scrambling, like they're running on borrowed time and have no idea how much longer they have. Though, perhaps based on how their previous encounters have gone, maybe the urgency is warranted.

She lets herself get lost in the sensation of it all, of the taste of his skin against her lips and of the way his every touch makes her feel like she's been set aflame all over again. In this moment, nothing else matters, especially when she pulls his shirt over his head and feels the heat of his skin directly touching hers.

Fuck it. They're going to get farther this time, if she has any say in it.

She wants to watch him come undone, wants to know he's falling apart because of her, wants that rush of power.

Her hands find his belt buckle, undoing it first and then his trousers, slipping her hand under the waistband of his boxers and wrapping around him.

"Oh, fuck," James swears, as she slowly runs her palm up and down the length of him.

"I have something in mind," she mutters in between kisses.

His voice is strained, like even this has him teetering on the edge of control. "By all means, go ahead."

With that directive, she roughly shoves his jeans and boxers down to his ankles, dropping to her knees in front of him. She looks up at him, and the angle is… fuck, it's hotter than it has any right to be. His hair is a wreck, his eyes wide and wild as they take in her change in position, his shirtless body something out of a goddamn fantasy.

With limited preamble, she takes the head of his cock into her mouth, circling her tongue around the tip as James groans.

He starts to say something, but whatever was on the tip of his tongue fades into yet another swear as she takes more of him into her mouth. Every single indication of the effect she's having on him only serves to turn her on more as well, and her hips rock of their own accord, desperately seeking out friction.

"It's your birthday," he eventually manages through gritted teeth, the words seemingly difficult to manage. "Shouldn't this - fuck - shouldn't this be the other way around?"

But despite his words, his hand tightens in her hair.

She continues sucking him off, relishing every single desperate noise and buck of his hips that she elicits, teasing him with her hand and mouth until his head is thrown back against the wall as he comes.

From this angle, he looks utterly debauched, and she feels another rush of pride at the knowledge that she did this to him.

She swallows, not even bothering to wipe her mouth before standing up and kissing him again, just as hard as before. He responds enthusiastically, tongue teasing along her bottom lip as his hand traces up her thigh, under her skirt, and finally dips underneath her knickers.

She's not sure who moans into the kiss first when he touches her. Everything that's been building up in her suddenly finds its outlet, and it's like a lightning strike.

It becomes evident very quickly that James knows exactly what he's doing, knows exactly how to touch her so that her knees buckle underneath her. It's only because his other hand is clamped so firmly on her hip that she stays standing. She'll have bruises there in the shape of his fingerprints in the morning.

He turns around so that they switch places, so that now Lily's the one pressed up against the wall, breathing hard as he sucks on the exposed skin just above her collarbone and slides a finger inside of her.

"Oh fuck," she cries out breathlessly, feeling a familiar heat start to build in her stomach.

It's mind-boggling, how eagerly her body reacts to every little thing he does to her, but she's in no state to question that right now. Her hips rock into his touch rhythmically as he adds a second finger to the mix, his head dropping to her right breast and latching on to it, tongue swirling around the sensitive skin and sending a new wave of pleasure through her. And his thumb, still insistently pressed against that little bundle of nerves.

It's almost embarrassing how quickly she comes.

He rides out the length of her orgasm, fingers still curled inside of her.

When she finally comes to her senses again, finally opens her eyes again, it's to the sight of him with both his fingers - the ones responsible for her current state - in his mouth, sucking them clean of any remnants of her.

He groans. "Fuck. Remind me to taste you properly next time."

She manages to muster enough energy to respond with the necessary bit of snark. "That's a bit presumptuous to assume there's going to be a next time."

He shrugs, fastening his trousers again, doing a shit job of concealing the cocky grin spreading across his face. "I suppose it is, a bit."

It's a level of arrogance she'd find annoying in any other setting, but right now, leaned up against the wall, completely spent from the overwhelming sensation of his touch, she can't help but find it incredibly hot.

She can't say he's incorrect in his presumption either - if Lily has anything to say about it, there will absolutely be a next time.

He steps back into her and presses his lips to her forehead, with a gentleness completely unlike everything else tonight.

"Happy birthday, Lily."

Then he's gone as quickly as he appeared, and she's forced to reckon with the fact that fuck it all, maybe she likes some of the fanfare of a birthday after all.

Chapter 14: religion's in your lips, even if it's a false god

Notes:

this chapter is exactly as horny as the song that it derives its title from. you've been warned.

The morning of the first match of the season brings icy cold temperatures, but there's no sign of rain or snow, which is promising.

It also brings surreptitiously delivered news that, while Harrison will be in attendance for the game itself, he's planning on acting as nothing more than a figurehead. Given the ratio of practices they've each run over the weeks since the holidays, Lily's the one calling the plays.

Lily herself should perhaps be more nervous about that than she is, the sudden weight of responsibility being dropped on her shoulders, but her nerves are somehow no worse than they've been at every other game she's coached.

Because the matter is simple. The Chudley Cannons have a laughable team this year, and Puddlemere is one of the best. She has faith in this team.

From the moment they arrive at the Puddlemere stadium - because luckily, this year's first match is at home - the entire team is in their zone. Every single player has their own pre-match rituals, some weirder than others, and Lily's become used to seeing it all unfold.

The only player she's never witnessed before a match is James. At least, she hasn't witnessed him before a professional match.

Back at Hogwarts, he'd been an absolute menace before every match. While the rest of the team could barely force a slice of toast down their throats at breakfast on account of nerves, refusing to speak to anyone around them more than entirely necessary, James had been a rush of giddy energy, gleefully knocking back a goblet of pumpkin juice and patently refusing to shut the fuck up, even upon request.

Their third-year Beater almost punched him for that, once.

(And even though she'd considered James a friend at that point in her life, she would've wholeheartedly supported that particular punch.)

From her observation so far, he seems to have toned that down a bit. While he's still by far the most high-energy person in the room, beating out even Mari and her relentless pacing habit, he has successfully avoided earning the ire of the people around him.

As if he can tell she's thinking about him, his head swivels in her direction, and she pointedly ignores his eyes.

They haven't spoken a word to each other since her birthday outside of Quidditch, though perhaps due more to her own efforts than his.

She doesn't regret their actions that night - if anything, it's the exact opposite - but she's come to her own conclusions about it all.

If they're going to engage in something - whatever this messy, repetitious thing is that neither of them will name - it's going to be on her terms. She let herself be played by him once before, and she'll be damned if she lets it happen twice.

Thus far, he seems willing to operate under those conditions.

But James isn't her focus right now - or, more accurately, he is, but he's only a seventh of it. He's her focus only inasmuch as he's one of her Chasers, one of the people responsible for leaving this locker room and ensuring that Puddlemere's season opener indicates just how dominant this team can be.

The noise of the crowd outside is gradually increasing in volume, the sheer number of people flooding into the stadium an indicator that they're getting close to game time.

As such, she calls them all into a huddle. If any of them are at all surprised that she's the one calling it, despite Harrison standing next to her with the head coach label across the back of his robes, they don't show it.

She walks them through the basic plays to expect, the strategy for the game that they've all heard so many times at this point that she half expects one of them to roll her eyes at the repetition of it, the most important cues for each of them to remember up in the air.

When she finishes, directing all of them to line up for their entrance, her eyes unconsciously drift over to Harrison. She'd love to pretend she's above that need for external validation, but it would be a lie. She wants Harrison to be impressed, to give her some sign of his approval.

What she gets is the barest hint of smile and a small nod, and that's somehow all she needs.

Adrenaline floods her veins, as if she's about to take off onto the pitch herself, and it takes a fair amount of effort to school her face out of bursting into a wild grin. She's doing this.

While the team gets a dramatic entrance flying through the stadium, the coaching staff of Quidditch teams make their way to their respective coaching boxes with decidedly less fanfare.

Harrison leads the way, ever the symbolic heart of Puddlemere United, enough of an icon in his own right that any attention of the crowd watching them travel to the boxes on foot is entirely drawn to him rather than any of the assistants.

Lily keeps her head down in these moments as she always does - it's only once they're all settled into the box that she lets herself properly take in the stadium.

Though she'd more or less expected the Puddlemere fans to outnumber the Cannons, the sea of navy blue is still far larger than she'd imagined it would be.

The team recognizes this too as the announcers call them out, each player zipping out on their brooms to thunderous applause. This is their home, their stadium, their game to lose.

And Lily, hardly one to let new occasions break her from old habits, pulls out a notepad.

From the moment the Quaffle goes airborne, she's studying every single move rigorously. Though it's somewhat different now, because before, she'd been observing plays prepared by Harrison or other coaches, adding her own feedback to something entirely outside of her. But now, almost every play is one she's run through with them, something she's directed them to do when faced with a certain move by their opponents, and that alters the whole practice somewhat. She's looking in a mirror now, seeing her own work reflected back at her, and having to pick out the flaws in that.

There are many - she's far from perfect, she knows this - and she'll let herself pick every little thing apart without any shame for that.

Because despite all those flaws that Lily's meticulously cataloguing, the Puddlemere team is absolutely fucking dominating.

James makes a sloppy throw, but it sails through the hoops regardless. It's not pretty, a shot she knows he could do much better, but it's still ten points, and it still pushes the team's lead over Puddlemere to triple digits.

It's frustrating though, because she knows he can do better.

But flaws aside, the game is an utter bloodbath. Not in the sense that anyone is playing dirty - there's a remarkable lack of penalties called throughout the entire affair - but Puddlemere trounces the Cannons in a way that's almost embarrassing for both parties. When Mari finally makes a grab at the Snitch, it's a mercy.

Regardless of how pitiful the opponent, the Puddlemere fans are electric in victory. The stadium is alight with cheers, the energy even more electric than it was when they first flew in, the fans ecstatic to witness such an impressive trouncing. While Lily hadn't seen any commentators questioning James' capabilities as a player, it had been well known that his predecessor had been the glue holding the Chaser team together. He'd had big shoes to fill.

And though Lily has her own qualms about his performance, she doubts any of those commentators will feel the same. His stats are too impressive for that, and they just don't know his playing like she does.

The team takes their victory lap, absorbing the spirit of the stadium, before flying down to the locker rooms.

She feels a hand clap on her shoulders. When she looks to the source, she sees Harrison standing directly behind her.

"I'm going to go catch up with some reporters, give them the usual spiel," he tells her. "You can go straight to the locker room and give the post-game feedback."

Lily just nods. "Yes, sir."

The other coaching staff are gone now, filtering to the locker room or elsewhere in the stadium, and Lily's halfway out the door when Harrison speaks again.

"I knew I made the right choice with you, Evans."

Lily can't fight off the smile that breaks across her face at that.

The entire locker room is positively buzzing when she walks in. The most enthusiastic of the celebrations have already taken place, but the energy is unavoidable.

But even despite the excitement and chaos, multiple sets of eyes swing to her the moment she enters the locker room. The team doesn't know about Lily's agreement with Harrison, doesn't know that she's been handed the reins by him, but they treat her like she's in charge nonetheless. Somehow, she's earned their respect.

"Absolutely brilliant work, team," Lily says, a bit louder than necessary, if only to get the last few sets of eyes on her.

James is one of them - he's in the back of the room, and he only notices her arrival when she speaks.

"Kieloch, you got some fantastic blocks in - there were a couple shots to the right hoop that I figured were guaranteed ins and you somehow stopped them anyways." Ozzie grins at the praise. "Those speed drills really worked."

And thank Merlin they did. He's only bitched about them half a million times.

"Ringwald," Corinne's eyes snap to hers, "that pass to McNamara off the right side? Incredible."

"Damn right it was," Charlie agrees. That particular play had baffled the Chudley Chasers - which was the ultimate goal. It had been a little rocky last time they'd run it in practice, but it was near flawless in game execution.

"Prewett - Gideon, that is - don't think I missed that one Bludger going off in the complete opposite direction it was intended." Lily means it in a relatively lighthearted way, and given the way Gideon laughs, it's taken that way as well. "Make sure you're fully getting behind that shot before you swing. But other than that one rogue event, the two of you played excellently - nice shot at their Seeker there at the end, by the way."

She turns next to the person she's been waiting to address this whole time. "Potter," she says, "you did great on paper, and the statisticians are going to have a field day with your numbers. But most of those shots were sloppy, and I know you can do better. Don't rely on luck and a weak opponent like that."

His expression is unreadable, though it betrays the slightest bit of shock before falling into utter neutrality, accompanied by a stoic nod. But there's a fire that sparks in his eyes, and Lily imagines this won't be the end of the conversation about this.

James was Portree's star player, the best among them by far, and she imagines he's not used to being the one receiving any constructive criticism after the game. He may be a star here too in his own right, but Lily's not letting him off easy because of that. Not when she can see so much more potential underneath.

"Dubois, I know you saw that Snitch long before you caught it," Lily resumes, turning her attention to the Seeker. "I respect the decision to wait to catch it against Chudley - I know the fans loved watching that game turn into a bloodbath. But next game, against the Arrows: they're too good to get away with that. Go for it the moment you see it."

The corner of Mari's lips turns upward in a smirk, and she nods.

Lily closes out the speech with a few more parting words, more general encouragement and feedback as well as directions on how to recover from the game to be prepared for practice on Monday. When she's done, she's given a couple of celebratory cheers, and Ozzie even comes over and slaps her on the back.

"Great speech, coach," he grins at her. The title is spoken with a heavy emphasis, like he's communicating some other meaning behind it, and Lily wonders if he's somehow worked out the general gist of her and Harrison's agreement on his own.

Lily doesn't need to linger in the locker room today - she never went airborne, never broke a sweat, so there's no point in changing out of her clothes, though she does take off her coach's robes as she walks to her office, draping it over the back of her chair and leaving her in just leggings and a sweater.

She tucks her play notebook into a drawer, already thinking about plays she wants to modify based on what she'd seen go down today. But instead of getting straight into that work, she lets herself sink into her desk chair, close her eyes, and take a deep breath.

She did it. She lets herself sit in that accomplishment for just a few seconds.

And then she grabs a quill, pops open an inkpot, and gets ready to do the last bit of real work today requires.

It seems fate has other plans.

She hears him before she sees him. Loud footsteps that she somehow immediately recognizes as his and a slamming door announce his arrival, and only when he slams his hands down on the edge of her desk does she look up at him.

"What the fuck was that for?" James asks, the anger evident in both his expression and his tone. That indignant spark she'd seen in his eyes earlier has caught aflame now.

Lily decides to play innocent - she knows it'll only serve to get him more riled up, but she concludes in the moment that she doesn't care much about that. It's more fun this way - not to mention that she finds it kind of hot when he's angry anyways. She shouldn't be letting that be a factor, but it is nonetheless.

"What was what for?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Evans," he seethes, lifting his hands up off of her desk and standing up to his full height. "The goddamn vendetta against me that you seem incapable of letting go of. The entire rest of the team got a fucking 'you played brilliantly' or a 'that move was incredible,' and I got a 'your shots were sloppy'? I mean, what the fuck? Did you watch the same fucking game that I just played, because last I checked, I scored almost half of our goals."

The implication that she's letting her coaching be clouded by any personal animus against him is the thing that annoys her more than anything else.

"That you did," she replies calmly, refusing to take any of the bait he's so clearly dangling in front of her. He wants a fight, but he's not going to get it. Not over this at least. For once, she feels in complete control of herself around him, and she's not going to give that up while she's got it. "I acknowledged that. But your shots were sloppy - they may have made it into the hoop today, but with a slightly faster Keeper or a little more right side pressure from an opposing Chaser, some of them would've been missed shots, or worse, intercepted. You can do better than what you did today - I know it, and so do you."

"Don't tell me what I know," he snaps, almost automatically.

"Well then," she sets down her quill and looks at him with an eyebrow raised, challenging him, "I'll let you answer for yourself. Are you a better player than what you showed today?"

For the first time since he stepped foot in her office, his façade cracks. It seems he's finally realising her criticism is genuine. "I - I don't know, maybe," he relents.

She stands up from her chair and walks around to the other side of the desk; it's almost certainly a bad idea, eliminating the one thing separating the two of them, but her body is moving of its own accord, like he's some sort of burning flame and she's the moth that can't stay away.

"You are," she tells him, fingers lightly dragging along the glossy wood as she joins him on the same side of the desk. "My job is to make sure that every single person on this team is playing their best Quidditch, that they're giving each and every practice and game everything that they've possibly got. Everyone else on the team was doing that, or damn close to it, and they got the feedback that reflected that, but you… you can do better than what you put out on the pitch today. So much better. You're damn talented as it is - but you can top that."

James turns towards her as she approaches, and Lily doesn't miss the way his eyes darken, dropping to her lips for the briefest of moments. She feels the briefest urge to laugh at how quickly his anger can morph into desire. It is absolutely, completely, one-hundred percent her intention to instigate that switch, but she didn't think it'd be this easy.

"So no, I don't have a 'vendetta' against you, at least not where Quidditch is concerned - you know just as well as I do from your time on this team that I am more than capable of keeping personal animosities far away from the pitch," she concludes, taking one last step towards him. "I just want to see you be phenomenal, because I know that's what you're capable of."

They're standing far closer than professional decorum would require, and James' hand finds her hip almost of its own accord - like it's natural, like her body is something he already has memorised. His thumb gently trails along her hipbone, and even over the fabric of her leggings his touch sets her nerves on fire.

This time, when his eyes drop to her lips, they stay there. He visibly swallows, before breaking the silence with an, "Evans?"

"Potter," she returns.

That's somehow the magic word, because an instant later, the remaining space between them is gone as James' other hand wraps around her waist and she's quickly reacquainted with the taste of his lips. It's a religious experience, letting herself get pulled into his touch and the way that his tongue gently drags across her lower lip.

It's less urgent than the last time, but only just.

Her hands tangle themselves in his hair, and she parts her lips for him, greedy for everything he's willing to give her. It feels like she'll never be able to get enough of this, never be able to get enough of him.

There's not a breath of air between their bodies, and somehow, it still feels like too much. The problem, Lily soon realises, isn't the space, it's the layers of fabric. So she grabs the hem of his T-shirt, and starts to pull it off of him.

He breaks the kiss for the briefest of moments, pulling the offending garment the rest of the way off himself. Lily quickly pulls her own sweater off as well - and when they're finally skin-to-skin, it's practically heavenly. He's positively burning up, and his inferno is one she can't resist. Her hands start to wander almost immediately, feeling along the taut muscles of his back and abdomen, and all the while, James' lips drop to her neck.

He nips at her pulse point, and she immediately moans.

"Might not want to do that," he mutters into her skin. "You never know who's going to walk into the offices."

Despite his warning, he seems to set out in direct pursuit of teasing even more noise out of her. She's so wrapped up in the feeling of it all - and in attempting to keep silent in spite of the feeling - that she hardly notices when her arse bumps up against her desk. It's only when James cups his hand under her bum and physically lifts her up and lays her on her back across it that she gets the tiniest bit of sense back.

"Shit," she mutters, breaking the kiss as she notices the still-open inkpot just a few inches from her head.

James, for his part, pulls back a few inches, studying her. "Do you not want to - "

She shakes her head fervently. "No, that's not it. I definitely want - it would just be ideal to not spill ink all over my desk and us in the process."

He follows her gaze to the open inkpot. "Oh." He reaches over to put the lid back on it while Lily finds her wand, which is also laying on her desk somewhere.

Once she finds it, she casts a quick Muffliato and locks her door, before looking back up at him, unable to stop the corner of her mouth from curling upwards. "Anything's fair game now."

"I'll take that as a personal challenge, Evans. I want to hear you scream my name."

The challenge leaves her lips instinctively. "You'll have to make me."

"Oh, trust me, I intend to." He smirks in that oh-so-arrogant way that both pisses her off and turns her on.

The latter of those two feelings wins out quickly though, as James' hands work their way lower, gently dipping his fingers under the waistband of her leggings at first, then quickly abandoning all subtlety as he pulls them off her entirely, taking her knickers with them.

Once they're completely off, James lingers there for just a moment, kneeling in front of her hips reverently like they're his altar and he's ready to make confessions. And then he does just that, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh before positively worshipping her, dragging his tongue between her legs in a way that makes her hips practically shoot up off the table.

She can feel his laugh as his tongue circles her clit - even that is a massive fucking turn-on, damn it. The heat coiled in her stomach steadily builds with each new movement of his mouth on her, and she suddenly just needs all of him, right now.

"Potter," she whispers.

He lifts his head only as high enough as required to murmur, "Yes?"

"I need you inside of me," she demands, trying to sound authoritative, but with his mouth on her it comes out as more of a plea than anything.

But James takes her instructions anyways, and he's clearly just as desperate as she is, because he doesn't even bother to properly tease her about how needy she sounds. Instead, he wordlessly pulls his joggers off, running his hand up and down his shaft a few times before lining his hips up with hers. And when he drives into her for the first time, she thanks her lucky fucking stars that she soundproofed the room, because their collective groans would be entirely unmistakeable to anyone who might happen to walk into the offices.

He lingers there for a second, fully inside her and not moving at all, head buried against her shoulder as he swears, "Fuck, you feel so good."

She wraps her legs around him as he gradually finds a rhythm, hard and fast and intense and hitting a spot inside of her that's absolutely brilliant. Her hands move restlessly, tugging on his hair and dragging her nails down his back, as he starts to touch her again and it's not long at all until the tension building in her stomach hits its peak, an intoxicating mix of pleasure and pain as she knows her release is coming.

"Say my name," he mutters against her skin, his voice low and commanding.

She just whines, a desperate sound that she'd be embarrassed by if she had enough sense to think about anything at all.

"Say my name, Lily," he says again. His hips shift just a little on his next thrust, and she completely loses her mind.

This time, without even thinking, she complies, his name coming out like a prayer. "James."

And like it's some sort of magic cue, her words quickly turn into a ragged cry as the tension finally breaks, and her whole body is aglow.

If heaven's a thing, she's quite sure she's just gone there.

He comes not long after her, biting down on her shoulder to stifle a shout.

They stay like that for a moment, her legs still wrapped around him and the weight of him pressing her into her desk.

"Now that…" she says breathlessly, "that was phenomenal."

James lifts himself off of her, looking rather pleased with that response. His eyes trace over her body once more, like he's seeing it for the first time all over again, even though he'd been touching it himself just moments ago. "I'll do my best to keep up with your rigorous standards from now on."

She can't help but crack a small, self-satisfied grin at that, pushing herself upright so that she can collect the clothes that have been discarded on the floor of her office. Her sweater is somehow entirely on the other side of the room.

Once she's dressed, and he is too, the casual ease of their interaction starts to fade somewhat. James clearly doesn't know if he's meant to stay or go, looking between the floor and the door, perhaps waiting on her cue one way or the other.

She walks back over to her desk, taking a seat in the only chair in the room, making her answer clear.

He moves to the door. As he's turning the handle though, Lily feels the need to speak again, to acknowledge him one last time.

"Potter?"

He turns to look back at her.

"We've got work to do at practice on Monday. I don't want to have to call your shots sloppy again."

There's an unexpected fondness in his eyes as he grins at that. "I'd expect nothing less."

And then he's gone, and Lily's left alone in the office.

She looks around briefly, at the displaced ink bottle and the way so many of the papers from her desk have been shoved to the floor, and she giggles to herself, because god, all of this is just absolutely absurd, isn't it? She'll admit to fantasising about shagging James on countless occasions, in all manner of settings, but on her desk in the middle of the Puddlemere coaching facility has never once been a chosen spot for those daydreams.

But fuck if it didn't exceed every single one of them.

Chapter 15: who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay?

The morning after the Cannons match, Lily wakes up to two letters. The first is from Dumbledore, and the heavy encryption indicates that it's probably follow-up from her last meeting with him, when she'd demanded he find out the extent of Snape's involvement with pureblood social circles before she'd go back in as Calypso.

It'll require both a number of spells and a decoder to work out exactly what it says, so she sets it aside for now, opting to open the second letter first.

The handwriting on the envelope is intimately familiar in a way that settles a lump of dread in Lily's gut. Opening it and reading the contents only makes that dread worse.

The opening paragraphs are entirely updates on Petunia, courtesy of her mother's doting attention on her oldest daughter. She gets a list of updates on baby Dudley's milestones, his first words and first toddling steps, and an extensive rambling about Vernon's latest promotion.

At one point, she did give a fuck about her sister's life, but now that she's so clearly been relegated to the outskirts of it, barely even worth the recognition of being invited to a baby shower or a christening, these updates do nothing but fill her with a sense of annoyance.

Petunia doesn't care enough to tell Lily about them herself, and her mother only brings them up as a point of comparison between her daughters - one of whom she sees as the success story, and the other, the disappointment.

Her father had always been the one most thrilled by Lily's magical talents, the only one who would sit with her at the kitchen table for hours after her returns from break just listening to her stories. Lily's magic had fractured them, split the family down a seemingly unmendable seam - and though they all had tried to pretend that wasn't the case while her father was still alive, the façade had crumbled to pieces with his death.

Now, she's little more than an outsider, only worthy of the occasional letter update and an invitation to lunch.

Convinced it can't get much worse than that, she lets that letter fall to the table and picks up Dumbledore's.

And because the universe is seemingly out to get her, perhaps to balance out yesterday's overwhelming successes, it does get worse.

 

---

 

Little Whinging is, as towns go, profoundly dull. The rows of houses all look just alike, manicured lawns trimmed just so, not a blade out of place. Even the shopping district mimics that style, devoid of any sort of personality or color - just uniformity and perfectly matched aesthetics as far down the main street as the eye can see.

The little café that Lily is meeting Petunia and her mother at is no different - crisp and white-trimmed and standing out along the street only by the collection of tables out front.

Standing outside the front door, she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, as if readying for combat. She doesn't want that to be the route that this afternoon's meeting goes down - the invitation, after all, had been perfectly cordial - but history would suggest that it's a fair expectation.

The bell above the door rings a little too loudly when she walks into the café, as if even the building wants to point out how little she belongs in this town.

"Can I help you?" the hostess asks.

"Evans, party of three," Lily recites. She doesn't see either her mother or Petunia in the dining area, so she must be the first one of them here.

The hostess gathers menus and leads Lily to a small table close to the back. It's positioned well enough to give her a clear line of sight of the front entrance, so she'll be the very first to notice when the rest of her party arrives.

Instead of doing just that, however, she chooses to occupy her time intently studying the menu, despite it being just about the most boring and straightforward café menu known to mankind.

"Lily!"

Lily looks up to the sight of her mother and Petunia both coming in at once, Petunia pushing a stroller in front of her. Her mother is smiling at her, and Petunia, as usual, looks more like she's just sucked on a lemon.

"I'm so glad you were able to join us, what with your silly sports schedule being what it is," her mother continues, reaching over and giving Lily a one-armed hug, pretending like her comment wasn't simultaneously a barb.

"Yes, me too," Lily replies, choosing to brush off the comment for now.

"Mum and I were just talking about how difficult it is scheduling social outings as a new mother," Petunia adds, her nose upturned just so. She's adjusted Dudley's stroller to sit next to her at the table, and is currently attempting to unstrap the pudgy baby from his seat.

"I can imagine," Lily responds.

She vaguely entertains pointing out that Dudley is almost a full year old, and therefore it's a bit of a stretch to still call herself a 'new' mother, but that's hardly a fight worth bringing up either.

"I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long," her mother says. "Petunia and I took Dudley to the park this morning, and he got his little overalls dirty, so we had to stop by her house to get him a change of clothes."

She looks around. "But isn't this place just lovely? I swear I tell Petunia every time that I'm here, this is just the most perfect town."

"Vernon does want the best for me and Dudley-kins," Petunia adds, her voice pitching upwards at the nickname for her child, who is currently blowing spit bubbles in her lap.

It is, more or less, exactly how every interaction with her mother and sister goes these days. Her mother and Petunia attached at the hip, Lily the strange outsider who pops in for an hour or two at a time.

They order drinks and meals, and the conversation progresses over food in much the same way. Lily doesn't mind it honestly, the sole focus on Petunia and her life, because at least it's better than the alternative, which comes around the time that they order dessert.

"How are things going with the sports team you help out with?"

Lily bristles. "The professional team I coach is doing well this season," she replies, specifically emphasizing her corrections to her mother's phrasing. "We just won our season opener match by a wide margin."

"Oh, that's lovely," her mother says. And then the kicker: "Have you given any thought to what you might do after yet?"

"I don't have any plans for an after," Lily answers simply.

It's the truth - while she's not sure she'll stay at Puddlemere forever, she certainly has no intentions of planning a departure any time soon. She loves what she does too much for that.

Her mother gives her a pitying look, one that sends Lily's blood into a boil. "Lily, dear, you know I love you, and it's because I love you that I say this."

"That you say what?" she challenges.

"I just - you have so much potential, dear. You were such a bright child, and you did so well in school before… you know. I'm sure there are so many different opportunities for you to pursue, but you'll have all this catching up to do, and I just want to make sure you're thinking about that."

"I don't have any catching up to do," Lily replies, doing her best to keep her voice level despite her steadily rising temper. "I'm exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do."

"I just think you would be so much happier if you - "

"Don't tell me about my own happiness, Mum."

This is always where it returns to: this idea that Lily's magic is somehow some temporary whim, that it's eventually something that will expire or that she'll grow out of, and then she'll come back to the world she was born into, the world her mother and Petunia still firmly occupy.

"I'm just looking out for you," she insists. "Petunia's just doing so well and is so happy, and I want that for both of my daughters."

Lily would, quite frankly, rather keel over and die than switch places with Petunia. Dudley is cute enough, if not a little fussy from being constantly doted upon, but Vernon is a nightmare and the concept of spending her days as his doting housewife sounds far more like torture than domestic bliss.

But the idea that Lily could ever be content with her current existence, firmly rooted in the magical world, devoting most of her time and energy to a job in a field that neither of them even remotely understand, is an utterly foreign concept, one that Lily's long since realized is a lost cause attempting to explain.

She sighs, knowing that any attempt to make her mother see her perspective is a lost cause. "I'll keep that in mind."

Her mother reaches out for her hand, and Lily resists the urge to pull it away. "That's all I ask."

There are a hundred, if not more, thrown-out speeches in her head that she's never said to them in moments like these. In moments where it's clear that there is some unfathomable chasm stretching between her and the two of them now, one that she no longer knows how to bridge. They almost always close with some sort of ultimatum - accept her as she is, acknowledging that magic is an inextricable part of that identity, or lose her completely. The delivery would be satisfying, surely, but she doesn't want to know how that ultimatum would be answered.

She can't picture them leaving, but she can't imagine that they'd ever stay.

 

---

 

By the time they finish dessert and say their goodbyes, Lily is suffocating.

Something about spending time with them, with these two people who should by all measures be the people who know her the best and yet cannot fathom even the most core parts of her identity, drains something out of her.

She hates it.

Normally, she just lets herself stew on those feelings for a while, before stamping them out. It's not like she can do much with them anyways.

But today, oddly, she wants to let them out. She wants to be able to vent to someone who understands what it's like to have your own blood be so fundamentally opposed to everything you stand for and love.

And so before she can think too much about it, she Apparates to the apartment building of the very best person she can think of to understand what that feels like.

She knocks on the door, and after a few long moments, it swings open.

"Evans?" Sirius looks at her in mild disbelief. Part of it may be her attire - she's in muted, pastel tones instead of her usual darker colour palette, possibly out of some subconscious attempt to match her mother and sister, to be more like them in outward appearance if nothing else - but she imagines that most of it is because she has appeared at his doorstep entirely out of the blue.

"Is now a bad time?"

He shakes his head, shaking the shock off with it. "No, not at all. Come in."

Sirius steps back from the doorway, letting her walk in. She's been here a few times since that first dinner, an attempt to keep Sirius and Remus in her life again, and she recognizes the warm, woodsy candle they've got burning in the space at all times.

"Tea?" Sirius offers. And then, perhaps sensing something in her, "Or something stronger than tea, perhaps?"

Lily can't help it - she laughs at that. "It's two in the afternoon."

He shrugs. "When you need a drink, you need a drink. Two in the afternoon is hardly the most offensive time I've cracked open a bottle of whiskey."

"Tea is good," she replies. The offer of something stronger is tempting, but she knows it's probably not the best choice.

"Can do," he says, grabbing the kettle. "You can sit at the bar while I make it."

She takes a seat in one of his chairs, watching as he fills the kettle and puts it on the stove. He doesn't speak again until he's done with that task, turning to face her.

"So, for what purposes am I owed the pleasure of an entirely out-of-the-blue Lily Evans visit?" he asks, leaning against the counter.

She could approach the subject delicately, or she could just cut straight to the point of it. Ultimately, it's Sirius she's talking to, so she opts for the latter.

"How did you know it was time to just fully cut your family out of your life?"

The lighthearted expression on his face morphs into something more serious. "Oh." And then, "Well, that explains why you looked like you'd just seen a Grim when you showed up here."

Sirius knows, to an extent, the difficulties she had with her family in the immediate aftermath of her father's death. They were still close when it happened, and Sirius was possibly one of the only ones out of any of her friends who could best understand fraught family dynamics, what it was like to feel out of place and unwanted in their own home.

"I just came from lunch with them," she replies.

He sighs, pondering his answer for a moment. "I think, to an extent, some part of me knew from the very beginning. That moment I was Sorted into Gryffindor and unintentionally defied all of their expectations for me, I think some part of me knew then that it was the beginning of the end. There was something about that I was never going to come back from."

He turns to pull two mugs out of the cupboard. "The original plan was to wait until I was fully self-sufficient, when I could cut those ties and not find myself shit out of luck without their financial support," he explains. "Of course, you know how that worked out."

She does. The exact details of the situation aren't fully apparent to her, but she knows that Sirius got into a significant fight with his family sometime over winter break of their fifth year, prompting Sirius to move in with James, becoming an unofficial second Potter child.

"It was… it wasn't a choice I made lightly. I mean, I know you know exactly how horrible they are, but for a while some part of me really believed I could convince them to see things the way I did." He scoffs. "Probably one of my most egotistical moments, that one - believing somehow I'd be able to undo hundreds of years of deeply set convictions just because maybe they'd love me enough not to lose me."

The water comes to a boil, and Sirius plucks the kettle from the stove, filling the two mugs. "But they were just - our differences were irreconcilable, and they hated the people I loved merely because of the blood they were born with or other circumstances wildly out of their control." His eyes briefly flash to the closed office door across the room, where she imagines Remus is working right now. "They might have been the family I was born with, but in the end it was all-too-apparent that they weren't the family I was going to choose for myself."

Lily nods, unable to say anything else.

"So, what was it about this lunch you just came from that has you seeking my take on cutting your family out of your life?"

She opens her mouth to answer, but before she gets the chance to speak, she's interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

"Padfoot, did you - " James' voice comes booming into the flat, and then cuts off abruptly when he walks into the room and immediately notices Lily sitting at the counter. "Evans. Wasn't expecting to see you here."

He looks uncharacteristically awkward in that moment - something about finding her at his best friends' flat, and also probably in light of what happened the last time they were together, seems to have thrown off his usual smooth persona - and he just stands there, frozen in place, like he's unsure what he's supposed to do next.

"Moony's in the office reading, go bother him," Sirius says flippantly, waving James off with a flick of his hand. "Evans and I are in the middle of an important conversation."

James just gapes at him for a second, looking like he's about to say something then thinking better of it. He turns to Lily, looking at her for one last moment, before following Sirius' instructions and going back into the office.

The heat of his gaze leaves a mark on her, setting the room on fire, filling her lungs with invisible smoke. It lingers even after he's fully disappeared, and she has to snap herself out of it when she turns back to Sirius.

"I can leave if you have plans with James, I didn't mean to - "

"I have no plans with James, he just showed up at my front door unannounced," Sirius replies, placing her tea in front of her. "Seems the two of you have that in common today."

Sirius walks around to join her on the other side of the counter, taking a seat on the barstool next to hers. "Oh, and don't think I didn't notice that look between the two of you. I don't know what's happening there and I know better than to try to ask, but that was definitely a look."

… Fuck. Is it really so easy to see right through her?

"My family still can't fully come to terms with the fact that I'm a witch," Lily says, choosing to abruptly pivot back to their original topic of conversation. As fraught a topic as it is, it still somehow feels like a steadier ground right now. At least she knows how to talk about this one.

"It's been over ten years, and somehow they still expect me to give up on it eventually. As if I'm off on some little adventure rather than, you know, my entire life existing here. And Petunia's as much of a bitch about it as ever, just turning her nose up at me whenever I dare to acknowledge that magic is something that exists in the first place, but my mother's always going about it in a 'I say this because I love you' sort of way that just…"

She feels emotion build in her throat, the type that she wouldn't dare let out, so she takes a sip of too-hot tea to push it back down where it belongs. The burning liquid makes her eyes water, but at least it's better than any other reason her eyes could start watering.

"But she doesn't. That's not… that's not what love looks like, is it? Barely talking to me and then when she does, trying to goad me into abandoning everything I've built my life on?"

"No, it isn't." Sirius shakes his head. "And admittedly, no one in my family tried that method - it was much more point-blank 'you're a disgrace to the family' from them, but…"

"I know the situations aren't identical," Lily tacks on. "What I'm dealing with is child's play in comparison to what you had to - "

He puts a hand up to stop her. "This isn't the Triwizard Tournament of trauma, we don't have to declare a winner based on who had it worse. What you're dealing with is extremely shitty, regardless of whatever I had to deal with."

Sometimes, Lily's in awe of the way Sirius has so dramatically grown up over these past few years. Of all of them, he'd always been the most immature, the least prone to deep introspection. But somehow, whether by nature of getting himself settled into adult life in a way that neither she nor James has managed yet or by some other force entirely, he's matured a lot. She can't imagine seventeen-year-old Sirius having that level of insight.

"Remus told me that, once," he acknowledges. "It stuck with me."

Of course. That advice does sound like Remus.

"That's fair. I just… I don't know, am I at the point where I jump off the train? Every time I get close to issuing an ultimatum, I wonder if maybe I should just give it a little longer. But I don't… I don't know if there's a point anymore."

"Making that decision is fucking hard," Sirius replies. "And you have to do it for yourself, not as some sort of punishment for anyone else. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face, you know? But if maintaining those ties is more painful than cutting them, which is what it kind of sounds like you're suggesting, then… yeah, maybe it's time."

It's something Lily's known at the very least for hours now, the feeling that settled in her gut in the middle of lunch and realizing the all-too-repetitive nature of these meetings, but it's wholly something else to hear the same thoughts come from someone else's mouth. It feels final in a way she wasn't expecting.

Her tea has cooled down enough that when she sips it this time, it doesn't scald her. "I think you're right," she admits.

"Ten points to the dysfunctional parents club for coming to logical conclusions," he jokes in return, the playful jab loosening the tightness in Lily's chest somewhat.

"When did you get so insightful?" she finds herself asking.

Sirius laughs at that - she gets the feeling that even he knows that, a few years ago, it would've been far more reasonable to predict that Lily would be the one in the sage advice-giving role between the two of them. "It turns out that dating someone who is very in touch with their emotions and has actively worked out how to process them in a healthy way tends to rub off on you, who would've guessed."

"Remus truly is the saint among us," Lily agrees. "I should let you figure out what James came here for, but… thanks for listening, I guess."

He smiles at her, and it's almost a sad thing. "No one should have to work through shit like this alone," he says. "I'm happy to be of support."

She leaves after that, and while the whole conversation hasn't fully resolved everything, she feels slightly more put back together than she did when she arrived. And that's something.

 

---

 

She gets her next event invitation addressed to Calypso Selwyn the next day. An art exhibition and dinner party hosted by the Rosiers.

She has no justifiable reason to say no.

Chapter 16: if i get burned, at least we were electrified

According to Dumbledore, Snape has gotten more active with the purebloods - but not enough to regularly work his way into their social circles. Without the heritage to show for it, they're more than happy to involve him in their dirty work but reluctant to bring him to their parties.

Which would seem massively unfair treatment to her in any other set of circumstances, but is to her benefit in these ones.

She's in deep blue dress robes tonight, crystals sewn into the slinky fabric so that it sparkles against her every curve. It's one of her showier ones, the tightly laced bodice and high slit leaving even less to the imagination than usual. One of the Avery sisters complimented it as soon as Lily made her entrance, and the other just glared at her.

She's not sure which family was responsible for the idea of this event, all of these insanely wealthy families flashing their art collections in one collective space for the night. It's nothing but a competition amongst them - comparing the size of each's collection of rare works the way teenage boys compare dick sizes. Just ten times more pretentious.

All of the art pieces in the event hall have gold plates in front of them, clearly announcing which Sacred Twenty-Eight clan is responsible for this particular contribution.

She's standing in front of a strangely-proportioned depiction of a herd of abraxan moving across a meadow when Rovena Avery - the sister who'd complimented her earlier - appears at her side.

"I wonder who was responsible for the guest list for this," she says, leaning in almost conspiratorially. "I've seen some interesting faces so far tonight."

Lily hasn't noticed anything particularly strange about the other attendees so far - thus far, it's been much the same roster of people who are always found at these sorts of events. "Oh?"

"It seems they've cast a broader pureblood net," she replies, punctuated by a sip of champagne. "Which isn't bad, per se, but I'd expected this affair to be a bit more exclusive."

Content with her contribution of gossip, Rovena slips away again, likely off to find her sister again.

Lily doesn't know what to make of the comment, but ultimately, it doesn't matter much. She doesn't care much what those additional guests might be up to - she's focused on Irving Mulciber tonight.

Who is, conveniently, at least two glasses of firewhiskey deep. After a third, Lily will almost certainly get some information out of him - he's a talkative drunk, but he doesn't seem to have the self-awareness to know that of himself.

For now, she'll continue her slow lap around the hall, collecting what extra information she can in the interim.

Will is here, but she hasn't spoken to him yet tonight - only made eye contact from the other side of the room, which he quickly broke. He's not yet entirely past her spurning of his advances, it would seem.

She turns away from a painting, and nearly collides with three people in conversation.

Two of them are familiar enough, the sorts of purebloods who she regularly speaks to at events like these, but who aren't ever significant enough that she has any need to work them for information.

The third is intimately familiar, but in all the wrong ways.

"That's a shit painting, isn't it?" Lucan Nott remarks, addressing her directly, leaving her little route to duck away. "Honestly, it's embarrassing that the Carrows even thought it worth showing."

"It certainly leaves something to be desired," she replies, but she's not looking at him.

No, instead, she's looking straight at none other than James Potter, who is staring right back at her.

The look of recognition in his eyes is unmistakable, and it terrifies her.

But he must recognise that fear as well, because when he opens his mouth, no doubt getting ready to say her name aloud, he abruptly changes course and no sound comes out at all.

She uses it as an excuse to slide perfectly back into character. "Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you around before, and you don't seem like the type I'd be able to forget about."

James is taken aback for the briefest of moments, clearly still trying to figure out what's happening in front of him.

"I - I don't come to these sorts of functions all that often," he eventually manages, then extends his hand to her. "James Potter."

She could kiss him for how effortlessly he's caught on, how he somehow understands what's at stake here. How he's managed to keep his mouth shut.

"Calypso Selwyn," she replies, putting her hand on top of his. He brings it up to his lips, the gentlest brush against the back of her hand, and it feels like a lightning strike. "Perhaps you'll need to make an appearance at more of them."

"We'll see."

This blatant flirting act is perfectly in character with the faces they each wear individually, hers fully artificial and his still somewhat connected to his reality. But it's entirely out of character for the two of them together - she's found herself the target of his frustration, or found him the target of hers, far more often. Even the heated kisses and then some they've shared haven't been particularly romantic affairs, have been spurred on more by a furious and blistering spark than anything else.

She doesn't know what to do with this energy now.

Lucan clears his throat beside them, and Lily realises that she's been staring at James for far longer than one would expect of a first-time acquaintance.

James drops her hand, and she lets it fall by her side again, the skin on the back of her hand still tingling with the memory of his lips against it.

"I'm going to get a drink," he says. "Would you care to join me?"

She's not sure if the empty champagne glass held between her fingers is a blessing or a curse.

"That would be lovely," she replies, and follows him away from the larger group.

The bar is positioned in the back of the venue, making guests really work to get their hands on their liquor of choice, but before they make it that far, James abruptly veers into a small offshoot of a room, empty sans for a few dimly-backlit sculptures.

He still doesn't speak her name aloud - he doesn't have to, she knows from the look on his face that he knows exactly who he's speaking to underneath all the makeup and beauty charms.

"What are you doing here?" he says, his voice quiet but strangely furious.

"I could ask you the same."

He looks baffled at that, stammering out a response to little success at first. "I - what do you - I belong here. Nonsense high society events like this are what I was raised on."

"Oh, what, and I don't belong?"

"It's just that you're - " he trails off when she raises her eyebrow challengingly. "You know what? I'm not even going to bother trying to finish that, because you'll find a way to get offended somehow."

"Well, what you're implying is offensive."

"And you know damn well I don't mean it like that," he snaps back.

She knows he doesn't. He's never been anything like that type of pureblood, and she's really only snapping at him because it's a natural defense. There aren't any true allegations in her words.

She sighs. "It doesn't matter why I'm here. All that matters is that you keep your damn mouth shut about it."

"I think I've proven myself capable of that, thank you very much," he replies.

She is, suddenly, aware that even in this secret moment in a crowded room, they aren't entirely hidden from view. They aren't exactly attracting attention, but she can never be too careful. She steps forward, placing her hand on his bicep, another boldly flirtatious gesture.

"Well," she says, sweetly now, "don't fuck it up now."

His hand comes up to caress her cheek, torturously slow, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a delicate way that sets her skin ablaze everywhere his fingers touch. Her body betrays her, leaning closer of its own accord. Maybe it's partially an act, but she wants, and she has no doubt that he knows it.

He leans in, so close to her that she can smell the expensive cologne he's got on tonight, and when he speaks, his voice is hardly above a whisper. "You know, I think red hair suits you better."

With that, he turns around and walks away, leaving behind a profound sense of frustration building within her - whether it's of the sexual variety or just from him being a massive prick, she can't quite distinguish. Likely, it's some combination of the two.

But this isn't over. Two can play at this game.

First, however, she has a target to speak with. Unexpected guest or not, she's here tonight on very clear instructions. Mulciber has nearly downed his third drink, and he greets her appearance in his vicinity with a satisfied grin.

"Miss Selwyn, a pleasure," he says by way of greeting, making little effort to hide the way his eyes drag over her dress, no doubt fantasizing about what she might look like out of it.

She's long grown to suppress the wave of disgust that comes with the way she's so readily objectified. It's despicable and gross, but she knows how to wield it. It's a power reclaimed, even if none of them will ever know it.

"I hope you've had a pleasant evening so far," she says simply, ingratiating herself in the group of his conversational companions.

"I fucking hate art," he replies, pausing for long enough to down another swig of whiskey. "My wife collects all sorts of shit for our manor, and I can't stand any of it."

"It's certainly not the most interesting thing here," Lily agrees, if only to appease him.

"That's the truth. We were actually just talking about…"

Somehow, the next ten minutes get Lily nearly all the information she'd shown up here to gather tonight. A tiny Muggle town they plan to terrorize, the means by which anything that occurs there will magically slip entirely under the Ministry's radar.

When one of the ladies loudly announces that dinner will be served, directing everyone to the adjacent dining area, Lily separates from the group of increasingly drunk men, determined to find better dinner companions now that the dirty work she'd come here for has been mostly handled.

The dining room is set up in one long table, chairs neatly lined up all the way down. About a quarter of the party has found seats already, and the rest are trickling in along with Lily.

About a third of the way down, on the side closest to her, is James. Her feet move towards him almost of their own accord.

She knows that it's foolish, that she shouldn't let herself fall into the gravity of a man who's only ever burned her, but what can she say?

She's always liked to play with fire.

The seat next to him is conveniently unoccupied, so she settles herself in it, adjusting her dress robes so that the slit in her skirt exposes her entire leg to him. She knows he notices it too, his eyes fixated on the newly exposed creamy flesh until someone at the table addresses him and he tears his eyes away.

She leaves it at that until the second course. At which point one of her hands drops from the table into her lap, and then slowly, undetectably to anyone else at the table, moves from resting atop her thigh to resting atop his.

His hand tightens around his fork. She resists the urge to grin in triumph.

Over the next few minutes, she gradually moves her hand higher up his leg. He's taunted her once tonight, so it's really only fair to return the favor. She can see, out of the corner of her eye, when a muscle in his jaw jumps. He refuses to look over at her.

She's just about at the top of his thigh, when abruptly, her hand is wrapped in his and very firmly relocated from his thigh back onto her own.

That could be the end of that, but it isn't, because his hand doesn't return back to his own lap after moving hers. Instead, it spreads across her exposed thigh, his thumb tracing small circles on the outside of her leg. In similar fashion to her own movements, he follows a slow path up her thigh, all the way up the slit in her skirt and then underneath it.

Across the table, the eldest Nott brother and his wife are discussing their latest philanthropic contribution to St. Mungo's, and Lily pretends to be caught on their every word. Realistically, only about a third of the words even register; James' fingers are tracing along the place where lace meets skin at her inner thigh, a featherlight touch that has heat coiling low in her stomach, a rush of anticipation flowing through her veins.

She wonders if he'll commit to it, if he'll touch her the way her body so desperately wants him to touch her in the middle of this room, surrounded by all these people.

Dessert is served, but Lily couldn't give a single damn about the perfectly-scooped chocolate mousse and sugar-crusted berries in the crystal glass in front of her. James' fingers are still hovering just a few inches from where she wants them - and part of her knows it'd be worse if he actually touched her properly, that she'd have to forcibly bite back every instinct to react to it, but this teasing is its own form of torture too.

But the thought of that - the idea of James' fingers coaxing a moan from her lips - gives her an idea for retaliation. She dips her spoon into the mousse, placing the confection on her tongue and letting out a soft, borderline-indecent noise of pleasure at the taste of it. It's the sort of reaction no one around them is bound to chalk up to anything other than an enjoyment of the cuisine and perhaps a momentary lapse in decorum, but it has the intended effect on James.

For the first time since that initial touch, he looks at her, and his eyes are burning. There's utterly no mistaking what he wants - and thank Merlin for it, because it's precisely what she wants too.

He makes one deliberate drag of his fingers over her lace-covered center, then removes his hand from her body entirely. She feels a flash of annoyance at the sudden loss of contact, the abrupt pulling-away, but she's willing to play the long game, particularly when James' eyes have already told her that she'll get her satisfaction before the night is up.

When it seems as though all the women are going to retire to the sitting room and a sizable portion of the men are discussing going outside with cigars and whatever collection of drugs they've managed to get their hands on tonight, Lily figures it's as good a moment as ever. With everyone standing up at once and moving, it's nearly impossible to notice the way she lingers just a little bit too long, waiting until she feels James directly behind her, his hand on the small of her back.

"If you're going to finger-fuck me," she says softly, leaning back so that no one else but him can hear her, "at least do it properly."

And then she starts walking forward with purpose, except, instead of turning to the left out of the dining room like everyone else is, she turns to the right, heading towards the bathroom she knows is just around the corner.

She doesn't have to look behind her to know that James is following, lingering behind her just far enough so that it doesn't look like they're going to the same place.

When she walks into the loo, she doesn't even bother fully shutting the door behind her, leaving it ever-so-slightly ajar as she walks over to the counter and looks at her reflection in the ornate gold mirror. The heady flush she knows is spread across her cheeks and collarbones is fully concealed by the layers of makeup, but there's no hiding the way her pupils are blown wide, dark and lustful.

She can see James enter the room in the mirror's reflection; he does so almost silently, the door softly clicking shut behind him the only indicator of his presence. Lily barely suppresses a smile when she thinks on the massive difference in his arrival this time and the last time they'd shagged.

When he walks up behind her and leans down to whisper in her ear, his voice is low and burning, and his hot breath against her neck sends a shiver down her spine.

"How about I do you one better than a finger-fuck?"

As he speaks, his left hand reaches around the front of her dress, up the same slit he'd had so much fun with at dinner. His gentle touch against her thigh is already maddening, and she can barely bite back a moan as his fingers start to trace the lace of her knickers again.

"I would - like that," she says, barely managing to get the words out as he kisses the exposed skin on the side of her neck.

She can feel him grin against her skin at that, before the hand he's got under her dress abruptly changes course, pulling her knickers down entirely. When they reach her ankles, she steps out of them, and James grabs them off the floor and pockets them. She's about to protest that, but then he's gently running his fingers all the way up her leg, teasing her, stopping to squeeze her hip as he stands up again, ducking his head down to press his lips against the curve of her jaw.

"You look so stunning in that dress," he whispers against her skin, and she flushes at the praise. "Of course, you look even more stunning with it off."

From him, the words mean something entirely different than they would from anyone else.

"Take it off then," she replies boldly.

She can't think of anything else this dress was meant to do; surely it was only ever created for this moment, to be taken off by him.

He follows her directions immediately, practically jumping to the task of untying the laces at the back of the dress, pulling them loose so that when he pushes the straps off her shoulders and pulls it down, it falls to the floor in a neat puddle.

"Fucking hell," James swears, his gaze alternating between her and her reflection in the mirror in front of him.

She basks in his attention, but snaps nonetheless, "We don't have much time - I'd like it if you did more than just ogle me."

He spurs into action almost immediately, one hand sliding down her stomach as his mouth meets the juncture between her neck and shoulder. He touches her, finally, making good on all the teasing he'd offered up at the table, and she surprises even herself with the way her hips jerk against his fingers.

"Eager, aren't we?" he asks, his voice light and teasing.

"Shut it, Potter, and fuck me like you promised."

It's always like this when they touch, an endless fight for power, a push for who can get the upper hand, knowing just how badly they want each other physically. The competitiveness of it is strangely intoxicating.

"Put your hands on the counter," he instructs, and she watches as his reflection undoes his belt and trousers.

As fun as it might be to argue with him, to demand his manners, they are on a bit of a time crunch, and she wants him just a little too badly to fully indulge her impulse to make him struggle. She braces her hands on the counter as instructed.

He's inside of her a few moments later, firmly holding her hips against his and causing her head to fall backwards, lost in the sensation of finally getting what she's been after all night.

He uses the new angle of her head to meet her lips in a kiss, no doubt smudging her lipstick enough that she'll need to fix it later, but right now she'll opt to messily kiss him back, the sweet taste of sugar-crusted blackberries still lingering on his tongue.

When he starts to move, it's at a relentless pace. After the Cannons match, she'd wondered, vaguely in the back of her mind, if fucking James was destined to only feel incredible the first time, or if it'd be just as addicting every time thereafter.

She's found her answer now, and it's almost certainly the latter.

The hand holding her hip is squeezing tight enough to leave fingerprint-shaped bruises, leaving a mark on her, a golden tattoo. It's a delicious bite of pain amidst the pleasure, and James' other hand finds her clit again, working that sensitive spot perfectly in time with his thrusts.

It's so much, so fast, and Lily tumbles over the edge almost as soon as she's aware of an impending orgasm.

When she comes back into herself, she can tell that James is close too, pulls his hand from her clit to her breast, meets his eyes in the ornate mirror in front of them. And that, it seems, is what does it.

For a long moment, the only sound in the bathroom is their heavy breathing, James' cheek resting against the slope of her shoulder, the pounding of his heart palpable against her skin.

Amidst all the events of tonight, the weight of him against her is almost grounding, calming. A brief reprieve, as if his presence has temporarily washed away all the expectations and stressors of being here, surrounded by all these purebloods.

She supposes it makes sense, in a way - he's the only person that knows her at all, after all, and right now, alone with him, she doesn't have to pretend to be anything else. Even in her worst lies, he's seen the truth.

But such moments of bliss were never meant to last forever, and eventually James pulls away, pulling his trousers up and straightening his dress robes, leaving Lily with her hands still braced on the bathroom counter, all too aware that she needs to get out of here.

"You still haven't told me why you're here tonight." He leans against the wall casually, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he watches her put her dress back on.

She pulls the dress up over her hips, perhaps a little more roughly than she should, before sliding the straps onto her shoulders. Unbidden, a wave of frustration washes over her, largely aimed at him for so thoroughly shattering her temporary illusion of peace. James may know her as Lily even through her cover-up, but he doesn't - he can't - know everything.

Her voice is frosty when she answers him. "I came into the loo so that you could fuck me, not ask questions," she replies. "Tighten this for me, will you?"

He obliges her request wordlessly, tugging the corset tight and tying the laces together. It's only when she's quickly fixing her makeup that he speaks again, and even then, it doesn't last long.

"Evans - "

"I'm not talking about this with you," she snaps, cutting him off entirely. "Both of us were here, if you hadn't noticed. I'm not asking you questions about why you were here, and I expect you to do the same."

He closes his mouth at that.

"Now," she says authoritatively, "I'm going to walk out of here, and make my way to the sitting room. Give it at least three minutes, and then I don't give a fuck what you do for the rest of the night. Just don't get caught."

"Seven years at Hogwarts really gave you no faith in my ability to sneak around?"

"Your detention record speaks for itself," she answers. "Not to mention, you had a magical map to cheat with for the last few years. Unless you've got one for every magical building in the United Kingdom, I think my concern is warranted."

She doesn't give him a chance to answer that - rather, she slips out into the dim, empty hallway. After a cursory check of her surroundings, she makes her way to the sitting room.

She is, predictably, one of the last to arrive, grabbing a glass of red wine from a plate nearby and promptly downing half of it. It's not enough to get her buzzed, but it's enough.

Just as with all of their rendezvous before, she can't bring herself to regret anything - but she can't deny that James seeing her here, James knowing even just the tiniest bit of what she does here, significantly complicates things.

She trusts him, yes, but secrets are always easier to keep when only one person knows them. That's been Dumbledore's philosophy all along with the Order, after all. It's what's kept her alive this far.

She refuses to give James any more information about her role, no matter how many times he tries to ask.

The Avery sisters are seated with Narcissa Black and a few other purebloods, and Lily takes one of the few remaining seats in their circle.

The conversation is largely about boys, which is simultaneously Lily's area of expertise with this crowd and the topic she'd least like to talk about right now.

Rovena, however, doesn't seem to catch onto that at all, and instead turns her attention straight onto the newest arrival to their circle.

"Oh, and James Potter seemed enamoured by you this evening, Calypso," she says, reaching out to pat her arm. "He's a bit wonky with some of his beliefs, but god, that's some serious money to marry into."

"I'm not sure he's my type," Lily answers, and it's almost not a lie.

Though her present lack of underwear might suggest otherwise.

Notes:

i can't tell if i hate this chapter or not but either way, things are about to get interesting.

Chapter 17: it takes everything in me not to call you

Their second match, against the Wimbourne Wasps, is a significantly closer one than their first. Wimbourne has a decent team this year, and Harrison is back at the reins as head coach for this match.

Lily's grateful for the reprieve - much as she loves running the show, even if only behind the scenes, she's had a hell of a past few weeks.

When she'd reported the information she'd gleaned from the art showing to Dumbledore, all had seemed fine. Interference would be run like usual, and no one would get hurt.

Instead, a house a few villages over ended up attacked instead, the Muggle family clearly treated as nothing more than playthings for a few purebloods whose original plans had been thwarted.

When she'd tried to ask Dumbledore what had happened, if there was somehow something she'd missed, she'd gotten the usual evasive reply. The events of that night were handled by other operatives, and the Order's secrecy demanded that she not know anything of what had transpired.

She'd bought into the organization's model of secrecy wholeheartedly when she first agreed to work with him. And she still understands its purpose to an extent, but goddamn is it frustrating as all hell. Surely, after three years of risking her neck every single time she turns her hair platinum and flirts with purebloods all night, she should be entitled to at least a fraction of the information he's got stored in his own head.

"Another ten points to Puddlemere!" the announcer shouts. Lily damn near jumps, having gotten thoroughly distracted by another time and another place. "And what a clean shot that was by Potter, assisted by McNamara!"

Damn, she would've liked to see that one, especially after specifically putting James in his place for sloppy shots during the last game.

She fixes her eyes on the players flitting around the field above her, determined to get her focus back where it belongs.

The game is played well on both sides, but eventually Mari catches the Snitch in a nail-biting race and the victory is awarded to Puddlemere, all but ensuring their spot at the top of the first round of published English League rankings.

After the match is over, as Lily is rearranging the contents of her bag on the locker room bench, she senses someone walk up beside her. Even without looking, she knows who it is.

James has tried to talk to her countless times in the days since he'd recognized her as Calypso, and each time he's reached out, she's given him no reply. He almost certainly has questions for her, and they're ones she won't answer. Can't answer. That much of Dumbledore's secrecy she understands.

But she doesn't get James' presence that night either. He's never been a pureblood sympathizer, despite what runs through his own veins, and he'd made quite clear that night that he still isn't one. So then what was the point? Why willingly spend time with those people?

She's turned over the thought in her head that maybe he's working for Dumbledore too, but if that were the case, surely he wouldn't be asking so many questions of her. If that were the case, he'd know as much as she does about how things operate, and therefore wouldn't bother asking.

Her curiosity won't get the better of her; she has no intention of turning around and asking questions of him, because then she'd be obliged to answer his. No, the best option is to simply not address it at all. To not address each other at all.

James, of course, doesn't share that sentiment. "My shots were cleaner this time around, weren't they?"

"The commentators seemed to think so," Lily replies, refusing to look at him.

"Sure, but did you?"

She sighs. "Yes, they looked cleaner."

If she were an optimistic person, she'd hope that would be the end of the conversation. But she's too realistic for that, knows James and his stubbornness just a little too well to let herself be lulled into any sort of false belief like that.

"Can you just - can you please talk to me, Lily?"

There's a desperation bleeding into his voice, into the way her name falls from lips. It tempts her - she wants to run into it, to run into him, to give him precisely what it is he wants from her. But she can't. She knows better than to let his charms get the best of her again, especially over something as important as this.

She needs to nip this curiosity of his in the bud, because she can't keep doing this with him - running around and avoiding him and slipping out of rooms whenever he enters them. It's fucking with their working relationship, and that's the one thing she can't abide by.

"Okay," she agrees. "Let's talk."

He follows her out of the room - this game was played at Wimbourne instead of the Puddlemere facilities, so the building is structured differently, but Lily has long learned that every single one of these away team locker room facilities has an unlocked storage closet somewhere.

As far as closets go, the one at Wimbourne is a spacious one, and she flicks the light on and locks the door as soon as James steps inside.

"Talk," she demands, rolling her shoulders back as if readying herself for a fight. Maybe she is readying herself for a fight, if their history is to be at all considered.

He blinks, clearly not prepared to be asked to initiate the conversation. Which is preposterous, really, given the fact that he's the one that's been trying to talk to her all week. She has nothing to say to him.

"What were you doing there, last weekend?" he finally asks, letting his bag fall to the floor next to hers.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she answers. It's a bullshit answer, but he has to know that he's asking a bullshit question too.

"Don't pull that shit on me. You're better than that."

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. "You have no idea what I'm better or worse than. And no matter how many times you try to push me for answers, I'm not going to give them to you."

"I don't understand - "

"You're right," she says, cutting him off. "You don't."

"Then why drag me here?" he asks. "Why agree to talk just to immediately shut it down?"

"Because we damn well needed to talk about that too," she tells him. "You need to stop trying to get some explanation for whatever you think happened that night, because I won't give it to you."

He opens his mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Lily uses that brief moment, that slip in his defenses, to force her way in.

She closes the gap between them, one hand pressing against his chest and the other reaching up to the back of his neck. It's foul play, really, shutting him up this way, but if she lets this conversation drag on any longer, she doesn't know where it'll go.

Those golden-hazel eyes, so earnest, make her want to tell him everything. To trust someone else with the secret life that's been solely her own burden for so damn long. Because despite it all, every terrible thing he's done and every reason she can't forgive him for those things, there's still something deep in her that unerringly trusts him to do the right thing here, to be on the right side with this.

She can't tell him though. She can't compromise Dumbledore's mission and the years of secrecy and infrastructure he's built for her selfish desires.

"I take it this conversation is over, then," James says, almost resigned. His hands still find her hips though.

"It is," she confirms. "Though what we do next is entirely your choice."

He stares at her for what is probably just a few moments but feels damn near infinite, as if hoping to decipher in her eyes the secrets he's failed to get from her lips. But in those eyes, too, is want, and she knows as clear as day what his choice is going to be.

He lifts his hand to her cheek, a gentle but firm touch, guiding her lips until they meet his own. The kiss is slow at first, missing a great deal of the angry venom that usually marks their shift from talking to fucking, but then his grip on her tightens, and heat rushes through her.

There's absolutely nothing sentimental about it, about the way he hoists her up onto a shelf that's almost too conveniently placed for this sort of thing, about the way he bites into the soft skin of her collarbone as she palms him through his joggers, about the way he thrusts into her as soon as they've gotten enough clothing off between the two of them to manage it.

It's not emotional at all, but something about it still feels like a goodbye.

 

---

 

Flourish and Blotts always has a great sale in the early months of the year, not too long after the Hogwarts students return to the castle for the new term.

Lily had always found that one massively unfair as a student - it wasn't as if she had a ton of money to spend on magical books to begin with, but when they were on sale would've been the time to do it.

Newly graduated, however, she makes a point to go every year, as soon as the sale starts. Mary decided to meet her here as well, and the two of them are getting drinks with Marlene and Dorcas at the Leaky Cauldron in an hour or so.

There's something deeply calming about being surrounded by stacks of books and bookshelves extending all the way to the ceiling. All these collections of knowledge, so neatly bound and stretched out alongside each other. Although, to be sure, some of them aren't neatly bound and are in fact actively trying to cause problems, as is sometimes the case with certain magical books, but she rarely has interest in those parts of the shop anyways.

She's already combed through both the Charms and Potions sections, nabbing one book that's been on her list for ages and is miraculously half off. Now, instead, she's looking at novels. Specifically, she'd tried to find Mary, and as such is now standing smack dab in the middle of the romance section.

As is probably to be expected of someone with such a terrible outlook on romance, she doesn't tend to read much from this section of her own accord. She'd torn through a few of Marlene's books while they were at Hogwarts and she adored Jane Austen as a teenager, but she hasn't dipped much into the genre since.

Mary, however, is an avid consumer, and has about five of them stacked in her arms.

"I'm aware this is overboard," she says at Lily's arrival, "but in my defense they're the cheapest they'll be until this time next year. It'd be fiscally irresponsible for me to not buy all of these right now, really."

"You don't have to defend yourself to me," Lily answers.

"You should read some of these when I'm done with them," Mary says, as they wander through the remaining fiction shelves together. "I'll lend you the ones I think are worth you reading."

"I'm still not one for romance."

"Oh, trust me, I know," Mary replies. "You don't do romance, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy reading about it."

Lily shrugs. She won't get into it now, but for some reason something about all those happily ever afters rubs her the wrong way sometimes. Maybe that makes her a bit too jaded, but she's not sure forcing herself through invented stories that are all just a little too good to be true is the right way to go about fixing it.

Then Mary says something even more unexpected.

"Speaking of not doing romance, at what point were you planning on telling me that you've been hooking up with Potter?"

Lily almost drops the book she's holding. "What?" How do you know about that?"

"It was a theory, but thank you for confirming it." She grins at Lily, before continuing. "I was with Lupin and Black the other day and Black mentioned that Potter has gotten super dodgy every time you've come up in conversation."

She forgets, sometimes, that Mary never really stopped talking to any of the Gryffindor boys, at least not in the same way she - and to a lesser extent, Marlene and Dorcas - did. She's a hell of a lot closer with them than Lily is, even if Lily has been making an effort to rekindle that friendship over the past couple of months.

She resists the urge to roll her eyes at the news of James's dodginess. Properly masking his emotions has never been a strength of his, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's given them away somehow.

But then again, she's accidentally confirmed it, so she doesn't really have much room to judge.

"Plus, you've got a couple bruises on your shoulder that look a little too much like hickies to just be run-ins with a bludger or something else Quidditch-related."

"Fuck," she mutters, reaching up to her shoulder subconsciously, to the place where her jumper has dipped to expose a stretch of collarbone, even though concealing anything at this point is pointless.

"I take it you've been enjoying yourself then?" She sounds entirely non-judgmental about it, not even questioning the admittedly extremely questionable choice of regularly hooking up with someone she's frequently proclaimed she can't stand being in the same room as.

"He's good in bed," she answers with a shrug. "Or, I guess, good anywhere that isn't a bed. We never shagged in a proper bed."

Mary laughs at that. "Fucking hell, Lily." And then she sobers up. "You said that in the past tense."

Lily nods. "It's done now, I think."

"Your doing or his?"

"Mine," she replies.

"Any particular reason?" she asks, readjusting the books in her arms. They've made it to the very back corner of the store, where all the horror books reside and not a single other soul can be seen perusing the selections. "I mean, it seems like if there was ever a person you could get to go along with your whole I-don't-do-romance thing, it would be him."

Lily remembers the way he'd so adamantly defended his feelings for her in the Puddlemere locker room, insisting that he'd wanted to kiss her for years and apparently still felt something for her even now. She's never quite figured out how to reconcile those verbal insistences with his actions, but they certainly cast doubt on Mary's assertion.

And then, of course, there's the actual reason. The fact that James has pushed himself far too close to the carefully drawn and impossibly rigid lines between different portions of her life, witnessed two identities that were never meant to be reconciled with one another.

Even though she doesn't think him a danger, he knows enough to be dangerous.

They've made quite a mess of things, and she can't continue blurring the lines any longer.

But of course, Mary can't know any of that.

"I just think it's run its course," she eventually lies, as they turn the corner into a slightly more populated area of the shop. "But anyways, how are things with Benjy?"

Mary's whole face lights up in that moment. The look of her is unmistakable - it's one of someone deeply, madly in love.

"Oh, they're so good, Lily," she gushes. "He's just wonderful, and so kind, and just always knows how to brighten my day. I don't know if I buy into the concept of soulmates, and I know for a fact that you don't, but sometimes I think… Merlin, this is so horrifically clichéd, but sometimes I think that maybe he's mine."

Mary, her friend who deserves the world and possibly more, is looking at her with something like pure elation, tinged ever so slightly with an expectancy, a clear interest in how Lily will react to this. And though Lily can't help but be a relentless cynic when it comes to her own life, she's seen too many of her friends fall in love and make it work that way to truly not believe in its existence at all. She can handle the real thing much more so than the fictionalized version.

"That's sweet. I'm so happy for you, Mare," she says, and actually means it.

 

---

 

She shakes out the towel that's been folded up in her Quidditch bag, throwing it across the room with the other items in need of washing. She reaches for the extra shirt in there as well, but when she pulls it out, something tumbles out of it.

It's a notebook, bound in dark red leather - one that definitely isn't hers.

She picks it up gingerly. The leather casing is softened with wear, like it's been held and toted around frequently. She lets it fall open in her hands.

There's nothing on the first few pages that give any sort of clue as to its owner, no "Return To" label or contact information or even just any identifying information at all. But the pages are filled with notes, many of them hastily scrawled and seemingly disconnected from the other comments, reminders of meetings mixed in with random half-finished sentences and crude doodles of Quidditch hoops and broomsticks.

She has no reason to pore over it as extensively as she does, attempting to make sense of all the clipped messages and how they might all fit together, but she finds herself doing it nonetheless. It paints a picture of a business plan in its early stages, a Quidditch program aimed at young Muggleborns, some attempt to close the gap in training between those raised with magic and those raised without it. A charity, most likely.

The handwriting suddenly becomes familiar. She's seen this handwriting before, scrawled out on immaculately-written Transfiguration essays and slightly-less-immaculate Potions ones, on prefect rounds schedules and written correspondence every break.

She must've picked it up by accident somewhere along the way after the Wimbourne match.

This belongs to James. This notebook belongs to James, these plans belong to James.

She'd thought, when they'd argued about it months ago, that he'd entirely brushed off her words about repairing his reputation. About how, if he actually bothered to put in the effort, he could be known for something other than living a reckless lifestyle and being good enough at Quidditch to get away with it.

She'd suggested a donation, or an interview. He's gone and dreamt up an entire organization.

He took a passion - and she knows he's cared about equalizing who gets access to the Quidditch world since he was a teenager, heard him talk about it on multiple occasions while they were at Hogwarts, including while he was teaching her to fly - and has apparently started trying to take the steps to turn it into something real.

She slams the notebook shut, but can't bring herself to set it down. Instead, she winds up clutching it to her chest.

Even when he's not around, even when she's made the conscious decision to exorcize him from her life as much as she possibly can given the circumstances, he's still finding a way to occupy center-stage in her mind, to confuse the living hell out of her and leave her desperately trying to piece together everything he's given her.

It takes everything in her not to go to him now, to figure out where he lives and pound on his door, demanding an explanation for not only this but everything, why he left her all those years ago and why he let himself lose sight of everything that made him him in the years since. Why he seems to suddenly care about both of those things now.

She doesn't understand him. She doesn't know if she ever will. But Merlin, does she want to.

She won't leave her flat. She won't run to him. But almost.

Chapter 18: saw the scoreboard and ran for my life

12 Dead in Explosion of Unknown Origin, Foul Play Suspected

Lily throws the newspaper down on the table, the unmoving photographs staring back at her. Though the Muggle newspaper obviously hadn't raised suspicions of magical involvement, Lily knows the telltale signs.

News of the attack is also conspicuously absent from the Prophet, and the oversight can't have been accidental. There's a distant Malfoy cousin in the editorial room there, and thus a means of keeping the increasing Muggle attacks out of the wizarding world's purview.

She's feeling helpless, and that's what frustrates her most of all.

Dumbledore won't let her do anything. Even as acts of violence against Muggles and Muggleborns have ratcheted up in the past few weeks, he's been firmly insistent that she do nothing but play her role. He won't give her any information beyond that, beyond saying that others in the Order's network are handling it.

He's got his reasons, she knows, has operatives within the network who have specialties that differ from hers, that are better suited to address open acts of violence, but it's frustrating nonetheless. To be entirely out of the loop of it all, to be expected to make her rounds at social events acting none the wiser, still scoping out the same tiny details.

She's never wanted to fight, but sitting around and knowing that others possibly are is somehow worse.

The rest of her life feels like a monotonous routine, which somehow makes the restlessness of it all so much worse. The regularity of Quidditch practices, workouts, and matches, the parties she paints herself up as Calypso for, it's all exactly the same as it's always been. The purebloods exchange knowing looks and subtle expressions of congratulations in front of her, and she does little more than bat her eyelashes at them and sip champagne that costs more than she makes in a week. Nothing but a stupid game with stupid prizes, as the real deal is going down just outside her doorstep.

If James himself wasn't part of the problem she's gotten herself mixed up in, if she hadn't already determined that their parting was the best way to proceed, she'd turn to him for at least some way to work off her anxious energy. That method always worked with Benjy.

Instead, she laces up her running shoes and sets off on yet another long run, the only outlet she can think of for all this excess frustration.

 

---

 

The practice before the Appleby match is brutally cold, and even all the Heating Charms in the world can't remedy the fact that, by the time that practice concludes, she's lost feeling in all of her extremities. Harrison is here this practice, but he's been away all week, so she's better equipped to take the lead for this weekend's match than he is. He explains as much after he sends the team off to the locker room.

"Did you drill Corinne's left-handed throws this week?" he asks.

"Yes, sir." Corinne is primarily right-handed, and plays with that side most of the time, but she's always been ambidextrous. That's an advantage for them, if they use it every so often, because the other team is going to be fixing on what she's doing with her right arm, not her left. If she's able to catch them off-guard by switching it up, that's another trick the Puddlemere team will have up their sleeves.

"Smart," he replies. And then, "The English National Team is prepared to make an offer at the end of this season."

"Congratulations," she says. She's not surprised - given the amount of time that the National Team has put into him, it would be more shocking if he wasn't getting an offer at this point.

"I'm still unsure what this means for Puddlemere," he continues. "Or you. But I'll keep you in the loop as soon as Worthington and I - along with the team's advisors - come to a decision."

She nods, and it takes a second for her to truly grasp what this conversation means. While the news of Harrison's offer doesn't come as any surprise to her, she somehow hadn't yet entertained the consequences of it. This team could suddenly look very different next year, and she's going to have to figure out how to work with that. Running the show behind the scenes was never going to last, and however this turns out - whether a new Head Coach comes in and takes over, or if somehow Lily herself is offered that spot in exchange for her work so far - there will be consequences.

She doesn't think she can step into a true Head Coach position, not so long as she's working for Dumbledore undercover. There's simply too much publicity associated with that role, publicity she can't afford if she wants to stay under the radar enough to avoid being associated with Calypso Selwyn.

It's another problem to add to the seemingly endless collection she's found herself assembling. And not even anywhere near the crux of it. Thus, it's relegated to only the back of her thoughts for now.

"Thank you," she tells him, and takes her leave. She makes quick work of collecting her things from the locker room, Apparating home in a matter of minutes, taking a few moments to wiggle her fingers in the warm air in an attempt to regain sensation in them again.

She's going to take a long, hot shower, grab a book off her shelf, maybe make herself a cup of tea, and try to distract herself for at least a little while.

 

---

 

She pulls the teabag out of her mug after accidentally letting it steep far too long, the resulting liquid far darker than it should be. It'll be bitter when she takes a sip, but she's got no intention of waiting around to boil the water for another cup. She takes the tea back to the couch with her, setting it on a side table as she finds her spot in her book again.

She makes it all of a paragraph in before there's a knock on her door.

Instinctively, she reaches for her wand. She's got no reason to suspect she's in danger other than, well, absolutely everything about her involvement in the Order, so… the caution seems warranted. The warding charms on her flat are freshly cast, so she's got an additional layer of protection from that, if need be.

She dares a glance through the peephole of her front door. Then flings it open.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

James blinks at her from the other side of the doorway, as if somewhat taken aback by her abrupt greeting. As if he wasn't the one to abruptly show up on her doorstep first. "I realised I still had your address."

She racks her brain for a reason he would've ever acquired her address in the first instance. It doesn't take long - she's suddenly lost in a film scene of handwritten party invitations and homemade punch and laughing on the couch then crying in the bathroom. The back-to-school party of three Septembers ago, the one where she'd waited all day for him and he'd never shown.

She's surprised how much it still stings to think of that day, a deep wound that still hasn't fully healed.

"You didn't answer my question."

He drags his hand through his hair. "Can I come inside?"

If she was smart, she'd shut the door in his face, force him to leave with his head hung. She can't imagine what else he might have to say to her, after she's already made it clear she's not willing to talk.

But she's foolish, and inexplicably she doesn't want him to go. And so she steps back and lets him inside.

He speaks as soon as the door shuts. "You're working for Dumbledore."

The sheer confidence of his words sends her world splintering into a thousand pieces. She'd expected him to come with more questions, never with fully-formed answers. A thousand questions race through her thoughts at once, all coalescing around the one: how the hell could he know that?

She can't lie to him though. He's pieced something together, something that in itself is made up of so many secrets, that denial would be useless at this point anyways. She straightens her shoulders and looks him in the eye. "Yes."

"Does anyone else know?"

What a ridiculous question. If he knows enough about Dumbledore's operation to place her in it, surely he knows the most basic mechanics of it. "The whole point was secrecy, so… no. You shouldn't even know."

That damn hair ruffle again. "My apologies for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She sighs. "It's not your fault." It's no one's fault, really, just a cruel twist of fate. Though she trusts him, it still feels like her position is compromised. She's maintained complete and total secrecy for so long - is this simply the first sign that it might all come tumbling down?

She can't entertain that thought. She's known, intimately and for years, that she's regularly putting herself in danger by entangling herself in Dumbledore's Order, made the decision that said danger was worth it far too long ago to even consider changing her tune now. Spending any time thinking about that danger potentially increasing, beyond just taking the extra precautions that it warrants, accomplishes nothing new.

In shaking that thought from her head, another one quickly takes its place. This one, however, she lets leave her mouth. "How do you even know about the Order?"

He looks at her like she's being intentionally obtuse. "Because I'm in it too."

He's… what?

As an objective piece of information, it shouldn't come as all that great of a surprise. James ardently advocated for better protection of Muggleborns at Hogwarts, consistently battled with the purebloods and Slytherins whenever they went off on their blood purity rants, ended up in more than one detention for all-out brawling in the halls over it. It shouldn't shock her that he's simply carried that outside the walls of boarding school and into the real world. Nor should it surprise her that Dumbledore recruited him - he was always brilliant with spellwork, which made him regularly resorting to socking Slytherins in the face that much more ironic. He could've taken them out with magic easily, outcasting them all, and yet he all too often chose to break their noses with his bare knuckles.

But she'd already counted the idea of James in the Order out, had already convinced herself that there was no way in hell. Not to mention that slotting that in with everything else that he's been doing for the past three years threatens to tear apart what little is left of what she thought she'd known about him.

"You're - since when?"

"Dumbledore recruited me before we'd even graduated," he replies. "I said yes immediately."

She picks her next question from the spiralling mess of them, the tangled web bouncing around inside her skull. "If you've known about the Order, why didn't you ask me about it directly the first time?"

He crosses his arms. She ignores the way she can see the outline of his biceps flexing even through his coat. "You're the covert operative. Surely you know that you can't open with something like that - ideally, you get the target to reveal the information to you first. Even I know that, and I'm about as far from covert as one can get."

She snorts softly at his own accurate self-assessment. No, James is many things, but covert is absolutely not one of them.

"I'd hoped you'd tell me yourself," he continues. "But given that that clearly wasn't going to happen, I finally decided I needed to hear it from you one way or another. Which is, again, why I don't do covert. Not to mention that between the Quidditch celebrity and being a known blood traitor, I'd be outed in an instant."

"So what do you do?"

"Well, for one, being able to turn into a stag at will isn't an entirely useless skill to bring to the table," he replies. When he sees the look on her face, he adds, "Somehow, Dumbledore wasn't all that surprised when I told him about that one - I don't think he knew for sure about our monthly adventures, but I think he had his suspicions."

He uncrosses his arms, drags his hand through his hair again. "And I run interference. When we know about an attack in advance, I put things in place to stop them, or at the very least slow them down. Dumbledore pretty easily pinned me as the mastermind behind most of our pranks at Hogwarts, and this is just… the grown-up version of that, I suppose. Except instead of trying to get all our classes cancelled for the day or make the Slytherins miserable, the stakes are a hell of a lot higher."

"Then what were you doing at the art exhibition?"

James shrugs. "The Sacred Twenty-Eight is positively overflowing with hubris. They invited all the pureblood families, even the outcasts, because this was them showing off their wealth, and they wanted as much of an audience as possible for that. I decided to make an appearance for the hell of it - while I don't think any of them know that I work for Dumbledore and am involved in intentionally sabotaging their plans, it's not an outright secret either like your identity is. They know I think their values are bullshit, and I'm sure if they ever figured out that the Order exists, I'd be one of the very first people they'd pin as part of it, if they didn't manage to just outright catch me interfering with their plans. But I'm also far too well-known for any of them to get away with moving against me at this point. If I was targeted and foul play was suspected, it'd put their operation at risk." He laughs bitterly. "One of the few upsides of fame, I suppose."

For the first time, it feels like James is giving her answers that don't feel like they're simply producing more questions. Though perhaps it's because, for once, they're not talking about their past, and that seems to be the epicentre of the confusion.

"So you showed up as a 'fuck you,' then."

"More or less," he replies. "I must say, I had a far more enjoyable evening than I was anticipating."

So had she, but she doesn't need to tell him that. They've only just now gotten on equal footing - she knows as much of him and his involvement with the Order as he does her.

"Sirius knows too," he adds. "About me, that is."

"No one's supposed to know," she points out, though she knows the warning is useless at this point. James has never particularly paid much heed to rules anyways, operating by his own standards of conduct, but the fact that he's blatantly disregarded the most basic rules of Dumbledore's operation twice now still manages to carry some shock value.

"I wasn't planning on telling him," James admits. "I was going to adhere to Dumbledore's promise of total secrecy, even from Sirius, but then…"

He trails off for a long moment, a war waging behind his eyes. "Then what?" she prods, hoping to bring that battle to some resolution.

He turns away from her, looking farther into her flat. There's something of a grin on his face, but it's devoid of anything but bitterness. "Then Sirius showed up at my doorstep positively livid that I'd no-showed a party, and I discovered in that moment that I couldn't bring myself to lie to his face."

Her heart drops out of her chest. There's no question of what party he's referring to. Why is it, somehow, that everything somehow comes back to this? To that one defining moment between the two of them?

"So I told him the truth," James continues, either oblivious to Lily's inner turmoil or pressing on in spite of it. "I told him what Dumbledore asked me to do, the risk I was taking. Sirius understood, but he was still pissed off at me."

"Well, I'm glad someone stood up for me that day," she responds icily. She shouldn't care so much about that party, particularly when there are so many bigger things at stake in this conversation right now, but now that they've reopened the wound, it's bleeding freely, festering in her thoughts and on her tongue.

The look on his face somewhat resembles a wounded animal. "Do you - " his voice cracks, "do you at least see why I cut you off now? I knew what I was getting myself into, that I was putting myself in danger, and that these people are the exact sort of twisted fuckers who would go after the people I love to exact their revenge on me. I knew I might hurt you a little in the process, but it was… it was at least better than the alternative."

Despite the look on his face, he's earned absolutely none of her pity. If anything, this has only made her angrier. He has no right to feel like that about this, about what he did to her. "And so you made the choice for me, yeah? Rather than letting me make the decision as to whether I was willing to take that sort of risk for you, you chose for me."

"I didn't want you pulled into a battle that wasn't yours to fight."

"Wasn't mine to fight?" she echoes back in disbelief, taking a step towards him. "This is absolutely my battle, James, what the… they're killing people like me, they're trying to get us kicked out of Hogwarts and out of the magical world - out of the only place that's ever felt like home to me - so kindly tell me how the fuck that isn't my battle."

"You shouldn't have to - "

"Of course I shouldn't have to!" she cuts him off, incensed. "I shouldn't have to defend my humanity or right to exist to anyone! But we're well fucking past that, and I'm not about to sit around while people like me are targeted and killed when I could very well be doing something to stop it."

"I just wanted to protect - "

She interrupts him again, unwilling to let him finish that thought. "I didn't need your protection. I needed you to give me a fucking explanation before just walking out of my life and showing up on the cover of every Quidditch magazine and gossip rag looking for all the world like you couldn't give a single fuck about some girl you knew from your school days."

Finally, he has the decency to look her in the eyes. "I thought a clean break would be easier."

And oh, isn't that just rich. "Did you not once fucking think about what that might've felt like for me?"

He just blinks owlishly at her, which cements the feeling in her gut that no, he had no idea what he was doing, had no idea what the consequences of his actions were.

"Everyone in my life, everyone, leaves eventually. The people I care most about in this world… they always find a way to stab me in the back and leave me for dead. Petunia did it to me when I found out I was magical, Severus did it when he started falling in with all the pureblood supremacists who wanted me dead, and then," she stops, takes a deep breath, because there's no fucking way she's going to let herself cry right now. "Tuney and Sev both broke me. And they crushed a lot of my faith in people that I wasn't sure I'd ever get back, but then… there was you. And you were so wonderful and supportive and I liked you so much and I'd really fucking started to believe that god, maybe there was someone who'd actually stick around, and then - then you didn't either. You up and left and disappeared on me, just like every other fucking person that I put my trust in."

His confused look gradually morphs into one of horror as she speaks.

"I didn't think - "

"Damn right you didn't think."

"Lily, I never meant to - "

She can't hear his excuses right now. Not when every part of her feels like an exposed nerve, having poured out her deepest vulnerabilities to the very person who'd once betrayed them. "I don't give a damn about your intentions, James," she replies, his very name a knife against her throat. "What's been done is done, and nothing you say will change that now."

It's funny now, that she'd once thought that maybe getting answers for his disappearance would solve things, would finally heal whatever leftover damage remained, would make things whole again. Instead, the pieces have shattered further, the sharp edges of the truth only made the cuts deeper.

He'd been trying to do the noble thing, to play the hero even when it was entirely unwarranted, entirely unasked for. Why that somehow feels worse than some explanation founded in cruelty, she doesn't know. And as much as she doesn't want it to, it hurts. She hurts.

"You should go now," she says. Her voice is quiet, but firm - there's no room for argument in her tone, and he seems to sense that somehow, because he just nods, stepping towards the door.

He turns the knob, then turns back to her. "Did you… did you really like me that much?"

He could've known the answer to that question himself - she'd handed it over to him willingly, once upon a time. "What did you do with those letters?"

The shame works its way across his features almost immediately. "I burned them," he answers, guilty.

She wants to be mad at him for that too, but didn't she do the same? Take every memory she had with him and light them on fire, attempt to throw away the sentimentality of it all in the golden destruction of a controlled flame, watch them disintegrate before her eyes rather than face them for a moment longer?

But just as she'd burned his pictures and he'd burned her letters, so too has everything between them been reduced to ash. She'll never see those images of the two of them again, and he'll never get to read the words she'd shared with him that summer, the piece of her heart she'd poured out onto parchment.

She's not sure there's anything left to salvage for them either.

She nods, and he turns away. He leaves with his head hung for real this time, and she stands there, even more battered and bruising than before.

It's the worst sort of ending.

Notes:

hi hello i hope you're enjoying your ride on the angst express, it is actually going further downhill from here.

Chapter 19: you've got your demons and darling, they all look like me

She’s throwing her things into her coaching bag when she stumbles across James’ notebook again.

She’d almost forgotten it existed in the haze of the past few days, the efforts to avoid him followed by the revelations at the entryway to her apartment. She hasn’t even had to make a pointed effort to ignore him after that - he seems to have taken her dismissal to heart and is giving her the distance from him that she so desperately needs.

She knows though, that she needs to give this back to him. He may not even have realized it’s missing yet, but it holds a great deal of useful information for him, and as furious as she still may be at him, she’s not going to sabotage the fact that he seems to be trying to figure out a way to do some good.

Much of her fury at him has lost its fire now, in fact. When he first came to Puddlemere, she burnt wild, ravaging, destructive. She wanted him to go down, to feel her pain, to get some level of vindication for the pain he’d put her through. Now, instead, she’s faced with something that has burnt out the last of its fuel, an anger that has reduced to little more than smoldering ash.

She got the answers she’d been searching for, but how worthless they proved to be in the end. His words, how little they mean coming a little too late.

So she tucks the notebook back into her bag, where it stays until the end of practice. Their match schedule is unrelenting, and though Portree - James’ old team - isn’t meant to be much of a threat this year, having substituted their star player with a rookie whose performance can’t touch even James’ first season. But Harrison has ingrained it in both the team and the coaching staff that nothing should be taken for granted, no match should be deemed even remotely guaranteed, and thus they train as if Portree is set to be their biggest match of the season. The weather is brutal all the while, a particularly strong cold snap that defies both magical and mundane attempts at conjuring warmth, and Lily’s fingers go so numb she can’t even feel them gripping her broomstick.

She waits out all of the long, hot showers - James’ included - in an attempt to get him at least somewhat alone. She doesn’t have the energy to conjure up some sort of lie about how she’d ended up in possession of James’ notebook if anyone were to ask. Though it’s all over now, it’s for the best that it never gets out that they’ve had their fair share of hook-ups in secluded corners of this training compound.

When the locker room is finally nearly cleared out and James is packing up his own things, she walks over to him and holds the leather-bound notebook out to him wordlessly.

He looks surprised by her approach, and even more so when he notices what she’s holding.

There’s an uncharacteristic timidity in his voice when he speaks. “Is that - ”

“Yours? Yes.”

“Where did you - ”

She cuts him off a second time. “It ended up in my bag somehow. I figured you’d want it back.”

He nods. “Thank you,” he says, taking it from her.

That’s almost the end of the conversation, and she almost turns away. But then, “Lily?”

She meets his eyes. The act sends a wave of bittersweet emotion washing over her, some sense of loss that shouldn’t feel so acute after all this time but somehow does.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I didn’t say it the other day and you deserve to hear it. So… yeah.”

Her throat feels tight, the unexpectedness of his apology knocking something loose in her. It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t fix the years of confusion and hurt and the fact that he’d made a decision for her that he never should’ve made, but somehow hearing those two words from his mouth takes her aback, sends her adrift. She’s been betrayed by people she cared about before, but this is the first time she’s ever gotten an apology for it.

She can’t answer him though, doesn’t have anything to say in this moment, so she simply nods and turns away for real this time.

 

---

 

When they were at school, even when she was at her most infuriated with him in their Fifth Year, he never seemed to stay away for long. She shouldn’t be surprised then, when a few days after their last interaction, he appears at her office door unannounced. There’s not even a practice starting anytime soon, so she knows he specifically came to the practice compound to seek her out.

It’s better than showing up at her doorstep, she supposes, but only just.

She studies him through slitted eyes as he steps into the office and shuts the door behind him, doing all the work of inviting himself into her space on his own.

A beat of silence hangs over them as she waits for him to explain himself, or else get out. “I know you don’t want to talk to me right now,” he finally begins.

“You are correct,” she replies. Looking at him rips apart a years-old wound every time, and that pain is simply too fresh to be willing to endure it for any longer than she has to.

“I just need to - ”

“Is it so hard to abide by your own intuition?” she cuts him off, the smallest embers of anger igniting. It feels good, that - anger is familiar, welcome, feels like coming back to life. “If you know I don’t want to talk to you, why corner me in my own office?”

He shifts his weight, shoves his hands in his pockets. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

“And if I don’t want to hear it?”

“Could you just try to listen?”

She sighs. There’s nothing he could possibly have left to say to her, nothing that hasn’t already been spoken into the chasm between them. And yet - “Fine,” she says. 

He pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, his fingers clasped around something. When his fingers unfurl, there’s a ring sitting in his palm. The stone in the center is a dark, glistening maroon, encircled by smaller stones of that exact same color. She stares at it, uncomprehending.

He can’t possibly think to buy her forgiveness, to communicate an apology in the form of gifts. He has to know her better than that.

“It’s not what you think it is,” he says quickly, as if reading her thoughts. “Or, I guess, it is, but I’m not giving it to you for that reason.”

He picks up the ring with his free hand, the band clasped between his thumb and index fingers. “It’s connected, by a charm, to a Galleon I’ve got. And one Sirius and Remus both have as well. I figured this would be easier for you though than trying to keep a coin somewhere on your person.”

“Why would I - ”

“It’s a failsafe, a call for back-up should anything ever go wrong. Operating alone may be the best plan for the Order in the grandest scheme of things, greater good and all that, but it also means that Dumbledore’s basically throwing us to the wolves if we’re ever caught. One of us against a group of them is a fucking death sentence, and he knows that as well as I do. But this way, if that ever happens, you’ve at least got a fighting chance.”

She stares at the ring distrustfully, standing up from her chair and walking over to where he’s standing. “I don’t need you to rescue me.”

And that was exactly the problem before, wasn’t it? James deciding he needs to rescue her and save her from some fate he imagined for her. She’s at least being let in on it this time, which is an improvement, but she doesn’t need his help.

“Oh, I know you can stand your own better than anyone.” For a moment, he looks at her with something that can only be described as a fondness. “But there’s power in numbers.”

The fact that he thinks this - giving her something like this - is a good idea baffles her. Everything about the Order’s secrecy is meant to safeguard against betrayal, and here he is, offering himself up on a silver platter, wrapping an immense amount of trust around her finger.

And he’s missing a lot of the details. He’s seen one part of her Order work, but that barely scratches the surface. She’s done far worse than flirting with a few aging purebloods who spill their secrets in exchange for ogling at her.

“I’ve killed someone,” she blurts out, inexplicably desperate for him to understand the inadvisability of his current course of action. “He tried to kill me and I got him first.”

As soon as the words leave her lips, she realises that she’s never said them out loud before. She’s never told anyone that, never trusted anyone with the knowledge of what she’s done, of just how far she’s fallen from grace.

She expects the flash of shock that crosses his features to last longer than it does. “This is nearly a war, Evans. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of to stay alive.”

“What have you done?”

“Plenty of things I’m not proud of. Plenty of things I’d never do if this wasn’t a fight for our lives.”

She can’t decide if the vagueness means he’s done nothing nearly as bad as her, or if it means he’s done too much to count. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter much.

“Why are you giving me this? How do you know I’m not going to lead you into a trap? I’ve just told you I’ve done horrible things, and I’m hardly very friendly with you at the moment.”

He takes a step towards her.

“Because I know you,” he says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and gently tilting her head upwards to look him in the eyes. “I know your heart. And no matter how pissed off you may be at me, and no matter how many terrible things you’ve had to endure to stay alive, you’re still relentlessly committed to the causes and things you care about. You’ve got a damn heart of gold, even when you try to act like it’s not there anymore. That’s what makes you so fucking incredible.”

Her heart climbs into her throat, the room suddenly collapsing in on them, an avalanche that sucks all the air out of the space. There’s absolutely no doubt of the genuineness of his words, no question of whether he really believes that. In his eyes is nothing but unwavering certainty, the firm belief that she’s no less for the things she’s done.

And she immediately panics, steps back, an abrupt and desperate attempt at breaking whatever tension has settled in the air between them. The intensity of his gaze, the meaning it holds… it terrifies her.

“Okay, fine,” her reply tumbles out. “I’ll take the ring.”

James nods, handing it over to her. Her gaze focuses there, on the ring held between her fingers. It’s clearly a fine piece of jewelry, but she decidedly ignores the temptation to ask or even think about its source. Knowing that he picked something like this out for her - or worse, had it on hand, some family heirloom - makes this far more intimate, far more romantic, than it has any right to be. This is no beautiful, magic love affair - this is merely battle armor in something damn near amounting to a war. 

It’s far too flashy to wear in her everyday, but that’s not meant to be the point of it anyways. It’ll fit in just fine with her ostentatious dress robes, her dark makeup and shimmering necklaces.

“It’s activated by pressing the garnet - but it can also sense when its owner has been Stunned and immediately reacts to that. The linked items will immediately zero in on your exact location - and yours will do the same if we activate one of ours. I won’t tell you that you have to come if that ever happens, but…”

“I would,” she answers, and he nods as if expecting that.

She examines the ring again, in light of this new knowledge. The spellwork required for these objects to work this way must have been immensely complicated - something that doesn’t surprise her much the more she thinks about it. They’d once created an entire enchanted map of the school after all, not to mention that he’s a damn Animagus.

But she does think of the other two names he’d mentioned. “Sirius and Remus are…?”

“Yes,” he answers. “And they know I’m telling you.”

“Why bring me in on this?” she asks, slipping the ring onto her right ring finger.

“Because I fucked up the first time,” he answers simply, “leaving you on the outside. And I’m not doing that again.”

 

---

 

The next day’s practice brings a reprieve from the miserable cold, and the sun actually dares to step out from behind the perpetual low-hanging clouds for a few minutes here and there.

She’s working with the Prewetts again, firing off magical targets for them to aim Bludgers at, and the Chasers are across the field, taking turns making penalty shots off Ozzie.

Left to her own devices, her eyes could linger on James, on that powerful build that feels so familiar under her hands, on that relaxed posture as he waits between shots, laughing at whatever joke Charlie just made. But they don’t linger, and her attention shifts away from him as soon as it arrives, her thoughts about him shoved to some deep recess of her mind for now.

She’d wrestled with it late into the night last night, the way their conversation and the ring on her finger and the pact that it carries have shifted things. He’s right, in his assessment of her. And though she wants to hold onto the grudge, to nurture the embers of her fury that have been gradually dying out anyways, she doesn’t know if she can.

If Petunia ever wanted to be a part of her life again, wanted to learn more about magic and her world instead of acting above it, Lily would let her. If Severus ever denounced the dark arts and his pureblood associations, she’d want his friendship again. James is no different. And he’d apologized, both in heartfelt words and in his actions. 

Her forgiveness is newborn and tender, and she’s not prepared to discuss it with him just yet, but it’s taken root.

“Evans!” A magically-amplified voice rings out through the practice arena, and Lily turns towards the source of it. Lucas is standing by the entryway.

“Switch to hitting back-and-forth between yourselves,” Lily says to the twins.

She flies towards Lucas, hovering a few meters off the ground to hear what he has to say.

“There’s post for you,” he says, brandishing a small envelope.

“Can it not wait until after practice?” she asks, somewhat exasperated that she came down here for a bloody letter.

“I don’t think it can. It came on one of those urgent-delivery owls.”

She’s not sure what could possibly warrant that sort of behavior - surely Dumbledore wouldn’t contact her about Order business while she’s at Puddlemere? The man has been practically militant about keeping details from anyone, including Order operatives themselves, so she can’t imagine that he’d risk a letter falling into outsider hands by sending it to the training compound. Nevertheless, the urgency seems to indicate that this is somehow related to the Order, and thus should probably be addressed quickly.

“Fine,” she replies, landing on the soft grass and padding over to where Lucas is standing. She takes the envelope and briefly signals to Harrison that she’ll be back in a moment.

Lucas walks away, and Lily steps off the field into the narrow walkway that connects the field to the rest of the compound.

She tears the letter open, scanning it briefly. Then she reads it again. The meaning doesn’t change the second time. 

The words on the parchment seem entirely surreal, incapable of holding any sort of truth. But no matter how many times she looks at them, they say the very same thing they said the first time. The message remains unaltered.

The response is instinctual, the same thing she does every time she’s confronted with heartbreak: she shuts down.

Her feet carry her to her office somehow, and she shuts the door behind her before sinking to the floor, her back against the grand wooden desk. She stares at the wall in front of her, the shelves of binders and Quidditch reference materials, utterly incapable of anything else. Pressure builds behind her eyes, a clear warning signal, but the tears don’t come. She can’t bring them to the surface, can’t counteract the frigid and unrelenting numbness that has turned her glacial, frozen her in this liminal state.

She doesn’t know how much time passes, whether it’s a matter of minutes or hours or days, but eventually her door swings open. The person standing there shouldn’t be someone she wants to see, but he is nonetheless. In fact, James is damn near the only person on this compound she’s willing to see right now. The expression on his face is grim, his emotions painted so vividly on his face in that unconcealable way they so often are, and she knows instantly that he knows too.

He shuts the door behind him. “You got the news about McDonald?”

She just nods, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them closer to her chest. She’s read Marlene’s letter too many times already, the words inked into her consciousness even though she never wants to think of them again.

Mary McDonald, one of her best friends. Dead. Not just dead - murdered.

The recent violence of the pureblood supremacists has felt terrifying from the start, the brink of something dangerous and inescapable. But somehow, she’d always seen it at a bit of a distance, the sort of thing that touched her life on account of her connections with the Order but not the rest of it. She couldn’t have ever imagined this , the string of Muggleborn deaths all in the same night, all dead by the Killing Curse, taking one of her best friends with it.

“Sirius sent me a note,” he says, answering a question she’d never asked.

He sits down in the space next to her, not quite touching her but only a hair’s distance away. He’s giving her that space on purpose, she knows. He doesn’t want to intrude, doesn’t want to push any boundaries in this moment, because the way they’d left things doesn’t exactly indicate that she’d be receptive to his closeness right now. But against those odds, she is. She wants him nearer right now, wants to close that space he’s left.

She leans her head on his shoulder, instantly relishing the feel of something warm and solid and real . She’s been in a haze all morning, hardly able to place herself in reality, and for the first time, she feels grounded. 

His arm gingerly wraps around her shoulders, stabilizing her in the here and now, in the reality of what’s just transpired. And finally, the ice in her chest splinters apart and the tears begin to fall.

Notes:

long time no see??

Chapter 20: this is falling in love in the cruelest way

The funeral is scheduled for a Sunday afternoon.

It’s an entirely Muggle affair, given Mary’s family, and there’s no acknowledgement of her true cause of death anywhere to be found. Her death is attributed to tragic accident, a heart failure that no one could have expected from one so young.

Lily knows why the lie has to stand, but it feels so utterly wrong to let her death be cast off like that, an injustice of fate rather than an injustice carried out by real people whom Lily would love nothing more than to personally send rotting straight to hell.

And the thing is: she could. It would be an absolute breach of Order protocol and jeopardise everything, but Lily knows damn well that she could probably gather enough intel to know exactly which purebloods were behind the attacks and hunt them down herself. There’s only a very fine tether of self-control keeping her back from that.

She slips into the church - a small chapel atop a hill in Mary’s tiny Scottish hometown - quietly, and takes a seat beside Marlene and Dorcas in one of the middle pews. She clocks the four Gryffindor boys - James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, plus Alessia - in the fourth row, each clad in solemn black. In the front row sit two people who Lily recognizes as Mary’s parents, and a third figure holding Mrs. McDonald’s hand. When he turns and she sees him in profile, she recognizes it as Benjy.

At the look on his face, the way that the past few days have clearly worn years off of him, Lily’s heart aches all over again. He’d loved Mary, and Mary had loved him - so much so that he’d already become close with her family it seems - and now every chance the two of them might’ve had to become something more has been ripped away.

Dorcas reaches over and squeezes Lily’s hand, and she shares a few quiet and sad hellos with her and Marlene before the service starts in earnest, the pianist beginning a slow melody.

The whole affair is miserable, as funerals often are, and Lily’s not quite sure when she shuts down completely but she does, that reliable coping mechanism sliding into place once again. She doubts it’ll hold, knows that it’s only a matter of time until it shatters and reality comes crashing through all over again, and that makes the numbness its own kind of torture.

When they move to the burial site, the little cemetery adjoining the church, and when they watch Mary’s casket get lowered into the ground - the Muggle way rather than hovering it in - that’s when Lily finally breaks.

She puts her hand over her mouth, as if she can physically stop the pain from seeping out of her, and a few tears slip down her cheeks.

She’s not the only one who feels it, but she’s certainly the most alone. Marlene buries her face in Dorcas’ shoulder, and her girlfriend wraps her arms around her tightly. And while Lily would never begrudge her friends for their relationship, she sure would like someone to hold her right about now.

She can’t watch this any longer, the unbearably intense wave of emotion rising in her chest threatening to take her over. No doubt someone will think her extremely disrespectful for walking away mid-burial, but she’ll suffocate if she doesn’t let herself leave.

When she’s back at the church itself, she goes into the tiny chapel, all but falling into one of the back pews as her legs seemingly give out on her, no longer capable of supporting the massive emotional weight building inside of her.

She wills the first sob to break loose, the one that’s been sitting in her chest for so long, but nothing comes. Nothing to break the tension of the mounting pain inside of her, and so instead she’s forced to sit with it, its full intensity crushing her under its weight.

“Evans?”

The voice startles her out of her own head, and she looks up to find James standing a few feet from her, his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets.

“I saw you leave the burial,” he explains, “so I - I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“You want to know if I’m okay?” she echoes back to him, like it’s the most preposterous thing she’s ever heard. It is the most preposterous thing she’s ever heard. Of course she’s not fucking okay, she just watched one of her best friends being lowered into the ground in a fucking wooden casket. There’s not a single shred of her existence that is okay right now.

He scrubs a hand through his hair. “That came out wrong, I know you’re not okay. None of us are. I just… I saw you leave and I didn’t want you to be alone. Unless you want to be, of course, in which case you can just tell me to fuck off, but I just… I don’t know, I saw you walking away and I thought maybe you could use some company.”

She should push him away. Her self-preservation should demand that much, should remind her that he abandoned her once and should never let her expose that vulnerability again.

But he saw her leave, and he came after her. For all that he’s abandoned her in the past, he’s here now, and right now… right now she needs that. She needs someone. She needs him.

She’s silent for just a bit too long as she weighs her own conflicting instincts, and James seems to take that as a different sort of sign. “It’s fine, I don’t have to be here. I can just - ” he inclines his head back to where the rest of the funeral party is still gathered, taking a step backwards.

“No,” she says, finally finding her voice and her answer. “Come back. Be here.”

He comes to sit beside her in the pew, a familiar warmth settling in from his proximity. As before, on the day that they’d first learned of Mary’s murder, he doesn’t move to touch or hold her, instead letting her make that choice. This time, however, she doesn’t move. She’s too lost in her own head to care, and she just falls back into her original position, head cradled in her hands, curling in on herself.

In the gentle silence of the chapel, with only James’s breathing breaking through it, the thoughts that have lived inside her head every moment since she’d first torn open that letter come pouring out. “It’s not fair. It should’ve been me. I’m the one out here fighting, I’m the one who signed my life away for this - if anything, I’m the one who should’ve died. Mary wasn’t even involved - she didn’t ask to be swept up in this.”

There’s a pause, then James answers, “I don’t think any of us asked to be swept up in this. You said that yourself, didn’t you? It’s always been your battle to fight, like it or not.”

She hates that he’s right, struggling to put words to why it’s different talking about Mary than talking about her. “It just - it shouldn’t have - look at all those people. She had all those people who love her.”

Lily thinks of Mary’s parents, of her extended family for whom the entire funeral was catered towards, of Benjy. The heartbreak so plainly written on all of their faces.

“You have plenty of people who love you too,” he replies, and there’s a sort of fervor in his tone that she doesn’t quite understand.

“Do I? Or do I just push every single one of them away?” The words come out with an intentional viciousness.

He just lets that one sit, not arguing with it. There’s nothing to argue, because he knows the truth as well as she does. 

“That doesn’t mean they don’t love you,” he answers softly, but it barely registers. She’s too busy barreling through with the rest of her jumbled thoughts.

“It’s all too much. I just - on one hand, I keep losing everybody I love, and it makes me want nothing more than to never let anybody that close again, so that no one else has the power to hurt me anymore. And yet, at the same time, I just feel so fucking guilty for not spending as much time with her as I could’ve. I pushed her away like I do everyone else, and now she’s gone forever.”

It’s unspeakably selfish, making this tragedy about herself. She half-expects - half-wants - James to call her out on it, to leave her alone in the chapel to reenter the company of people who can actually grieve Mary the way she deserves, but he doesn’t.

To her surprise, he laughs, clipped and bitter, and when he speaks, his voice is thick, like he’s warring with emotions of his own. “That’s… that’s the fucking nightmare of it all, isn’t it?”

She’s reminded of the way he lost his parents, the way his life has been marred by so many of the same sorts of tragedies as her own.

No more words come to her, nor do they to him, and that same gentle silence from before settles over them. She’s not sure how long they stay like that, only that when James finally breaks the silence, it’s been long enough that she startles at his voice.

“Do you - do you want to come back to mine for tea? Or something stronger?”

She turns to look at him, to properly study him for the first time all day. There’s a heaviness to his features that’s surely reflected in her own, his hair for once tamed out of its usual unruliness. The steady look in his eyes confirms that his offer is a genuine one, not just a poorly disguised proposal for something more. If she just wanted a drink and nothing more, she doubts he’d begrudge her that.

“Tea would be nice,” she eventually concludes. That selfish, desperate part of her that needed him with her when he first came to the chapel doesn’t want to part with him, and at least for now, she’ll indulge it.

He nods, extending his hand to her. She takes it, and almost as soon as he’s helped her to standing he Apparates them to the exterior of what she can only assume is his flat.

The place is a thing of luxury, she notes, as soon as James unlocks the door and leads her through the threshold. High ceilings, arching doorways, a fireplace crackling at the heart of the living area. Even so, it’s also full of light and life, a few Quidditch team pictures and even more pictures of Sirius, Remus, and Peter lining the walls. They’re hung up with Spellotape rather than proper framing, which is somehow endearing even as it is wildly out of place in the fine design of the place.

James goes into the kitchen and starts the process of making tea, putting the kettle on the stove. Lily leans against the doorway and watches him - there’s nothing stopping her from going into the kitchen herself, but some sort of invisible barrier keeps her here. To walk in there feels like breaking a bubble of reality, intruding on space that isn’t really hers. So instead she holds herself at a distance, studying the broad line of his shoulders beneath his dress shirt. He really is gorgeous, and through the thick of it all, she wants.

Once the water’s heated, James quickly pours it into two mugs and adds a tea bag to each. Only after he’s done all of that does he turn back to Lily, crossing the kitchen in a few quick strides so that he’s in front of her.

“Right, well, we’ll just let that steep for a few minutes and - ”

Whatever the rest of his sentence was meant to be is muffled by Lily’s lips crashing into his.

He takes the sudden interruption in stride, and after the initial shock, starts to kiss her back with equal intensity. She wraps her arms around his neck like he’s the only thing keeping her afloat, and he returns the favour by clutching her waist just as tightly, like he’s scared she might drift away if he doesn’t keep her firmly pressed up against him. There may be a storm raging around them and within them, but this - this is steady. A lifeboat.

It doesn’t take long for things to turn into something more; her fingers start pulling James’ tie loose as his hands start to gradually travel lower, tracing the outline of her hips and the curve of her ass.

Part of her feels like this is probably massively inappropriate and fucked-up, leaving a funeral - a funeral for her friend, no less - and immediately jumping into bed. But after a whole day that’s felt so morbid, that’s felt so marked by death and loss, she desperately needs something, anything to remind her that she’s still alive. That she’s still here, still breathing and standing and on this earth. And the rush of heat that James’ touch sends all the way down to her toes, the way her heart pounds in her chest when he pulls her close - it’s perhaps the strongest version of that reminder that she can ask for.

“You have a bed, yeah?” she mutters against his lips, before turning her attention to his jawline, pressing kisses along it rapturously.

She gently tugs on his earlobe with her teeth, and she feels his breath hitch in his throat. “I should hope so - Puddlemere pays me too much for me to not have one of those,” he retorts breathlessly.

She presses one more kiss to the skin just below his jaw, before replying, “Then lead the way.”

Somehow, she’s not expecting what comes next. Before she knows it, James has one arm around her waist and the other around the backs of her knees as he picks her up, bridal-style. He carries her like that all the way across the massive apartment and into his bedroom, at which point Lily has already managed to undo half of his shirt buttons and they’ve almost collided with a door frame because she’d distracted him by nipping at the skin on his neck.

When he sets her down on the bed none-too-gently and she bounces a little, she can’t help the giggle that escapes her lips. This whole day has felt impossibly heavy, and for the first time, she feels buoyed by something. By someone.

She watches him as he finishes unbuttoning his shirt, long fingers making quick work of the remaining buttons, before they move to his belt, undoing that as well. She once might’ve felt ashamed about the way her eyes follow his every movement, shedding each piece of clothing and exposing more of himself to her, but now, she unabashedly drinks every part of him in. Once he kicks off his trousers, shoes, and socks, he climbs onto the bed on top of her, pressing her into the mattress with the force of his kiss. Even with all the fabric still between them, she can feel how hard he is already, and her thighs clench at the need to have him inside of her.

“How do I get this off?” he asks the moment he comes up for air, and it takes a moment for her mind to clear enough to realise that he’s talking about her dress.

“Zipper. In back.”

He lifts a little more of his weight off of her, reaching underneath her and fumbling a bit until he finds the zipper by her neck and tugs it down. When he comes back to her shoulders to take the dress itself off, he goes so impossibly slow, like he’s peeling the garment off of her, like he’s unwrapping her and trying to savor the moment as long as possible. 

Once he has, with her help, pulled it all the way off and let it fall to one side of the bed, he props himself up on his knees and looks down on her. His pupils are wide as he takes in the sight of her, studying every part of her with rapture and adoration and something else that makes Lily feel like she’s positively glowing. Seeing the awed expression on his face, and knowing she put it there… she could get drunk on this moment and never need a sip of alcohol ever again.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, and the way the words tumble from his mouth, effortlessly and unthinkingly, tell her that they’re completely genuine.

She needs him. She’s dizzy with how much she needs him, how desperately she wants to feel the fire of his skin pressed against hers. “Come here,” she demands, reaching out for one of his hands and tugging him towards her when she grabs it.

He settles on top of her again, the heat of his skin meeting her own, their bodies molding together in all the right places, and that alone feels absolutely brilliant. To have him so close, so secure and alive. His lips on her jaw, her neck, all those same places she’d kissed on him now driving her to absolute madness on the other side.

He starts to slowly kiss his way down her body, starting at her neck, along her collarbones, down her chest and stomach, on her hip bones and the top of her thighs. Once he’s gently pressed his lips to her inner thigh, he takes a break from his ministrations to look up at her.

“I want to go down on you properly this time,” he says, and Lily’s so breathless as she looks down at him that all she can do is nod. 

At that, he hooks his fingers under the waistband of her underwear, tugging them down as she lifts her hips off the mattress automatically. He takes his time with it, gradually pulling them all the way off and letting them fall to the floor. Then he picks up her right foot, pressing a kiss to her ankle, another to her calf, then her knee, and to the middle of her thigh, and by the time he’s pressing his lips against the crease of her hips, she’s practically losing her mind with need.

“James, if you’re going to do it… please.”

“I’m getting there,” he tells her, and she bites back a reply of ‘well, get there faster.’

He gently pushes her thighs a little farther apart, settling into the space between them as one of his arms goes up to lay across her hips. He presses one last kiss to the inside of her thigh, and then his mouth is on her and she’s gasping as her hips shoot up off the mattress automatically.

It’s absolutely, undoubtedly worth the wait.

“So fucking wet for me,” he mutters, still so close that the each word is a puff of air on her clit. “So fucking good.”

He tightens his grip on her hips, keeping her in place as he takes his time to figure out what makes her fist her hands in the sheets, what makes her throw her head back against the pillow, what makes her curse and moan out his name all in one breath. He teases her to the edge of an orgasm before backing off one, two, three times, and it’s only on the fourth time that he finishes the job, curling two fingers inside of her as his tongue flicks over her clit just so, and she’s an incoherent shaking mess underneath him as she rides out her high.

When it finally gets to be too much, she tugs him away by his hair - hair that, despite its earlier control, has fully reverted to its usual messiness - chasing that same body heat from before. She pulls him into her - so impossibly, deliriously close to her - and kisses him again, and the intensity of it makes her head spin. 

His hands are everywhere - her hair, the back of her neck, the side of her ribs, the outside of her thigh. The proof of his desire is pressed against her inner thigh, and even through the post-orgasm haze it occurs to her that she wants to give him the same pleasure he’s just given her.

It’s easy enough to flip him over onto his back, to guide them over so that she’s straddled above him. She doesn’t even break the kiss to do it, only does that when she realizes her bra is unhooked and sliding off her shoulders.

“When did you manage that?” she asks, slipping it off the rest of the way and letting it fall to the side of them.

“I have my ways,” James replies, smirking slightly, before dropping his lips to her neck. He cups both of her tits with his hands, running his thumb over one hypersensitive nipple while his tongue flicks over the other one. It feels so maddeningly delicious that she almost forgets she’s trying to give him the attention now.

But she does remember, and she escapes his hold to slip slowly down his body, finally freeing his cock from his boxers and wasting no time getting her mouth on it.

He swears and bucks his hips, and she takes him deeper. One of his hands spears into her hair, but he doesn’t push her any further. She barely spends a minute there before he ends up using his hand in the opposite direction, tugging her off of him. 

His voice is strained when he speaks. “If you keep that up for much longer, I won’t get to come inside of you.”

And she can’t argue with that, because she wants that outcome just as much as he does.

“How do you want me?” she asks. Only after the question is posed does she realize she’s not sure she’s ever asked that of a lover before.

James ponders it for a moment. “On your knees. Face on the pillow.”

“So I don’t get to look at you?” she jokes, even as she moves into his requested position. She folds her hands underneath the pillow, turning her head to one side so that she can just barely make out the shape of him in her periphery.

“There’s time for looking later,” he replies, coming up behind her, one hand bracing on her hip. “Right now, I want you to feel all of me.”

He makes quick work of settling into place, and all it takes is one slick thrust for him to be inside of her completely, making good on his words. The sudden fullness nearly does her in, a high-pitched moan rushing out of her lungs. The angle is fucking divine, their bodies fully connected, his second hand finding her other hip for even more leverage.

“Lily,” James groans, pulling out slowly and snapping his hips back in, hitting a spot inside of her that’s so good it makes her vision go hazy at the edges. She can’t even find the words to reply to him, to tell him how intoxicating the sound of her name is dripping from his lips in pure need.

It’s all-consuming, the sensation of it all, and she’s entirely at his mercy like this. That should terrify her - it usually does, giving up all semblance of control like this - and yet somehow, in this moment, it’s exactly what she needs. It’s primal and mindless, but somehow achingly intimate all at once. A show of vulnerability and trust, to let him guide her through it, working her up as he gradually picks up pace.

Heat coils low in her stomach, and she thinks she might very well come from this sensation alone, but then James slips a hand from her hip to find her clit. Still sensitive from before, all it takes are a few swirls of his fingers in time with his thrusts before everything shatters.

And it truly is a shattering - physically, as her body spirals into bliss, her thighs shaking as James continues his unrelenting pace, but also mentally, as everything that’s crushed her for the past days, weeks, months, years seemingly floats away, if only for a few weightless moments. 

She drifts for whatever amount of time it takes for James to follow her over the edge, coming back into herself as his rhythm turns erratic and finally stills. When he releases the grip on her hips - so tight she’s sure there will be fingerprint-shaped bruises there in the morning, the most delicious sort of pain and relic - she melts fully into the mattress, and he comes up beside her. In an instant, his arms are around her, tugging her close.

Without a single thought for the meaning or consequences, she lets herself melt into his embrace, turning to face him and tucking her head against his chest. His breathing takes a few moments to steady, and she can feel when he presses his lips to the top of her head.

Silence lingers for a few minutes, but it doesn’t last. Predictably, James is the one to break it as his hand traces circles over Lily’s hip. His voice betrays a soft uncertainty as he says, in a simple way, “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

And the thing is, she already has. She’s known that she would since the day he walked into her office and put that ring in her hand, but confessing that has felt like something dangerous. Her forgiveness opens up a whole new battlefield for them to navigate, and she hasn’t even started to work out what that might look like, where they go from here. 

But to lie to him would be sacrilege, curled into his body the way she is right now, her own body still humming with the pleasure he’d inflicted upon it. A desecration of this space that neither of them deserve. 

“Yes,” she admits quietly, forcing herself to shift her head and look him in the eyes as she says it.

But before he can say anything else, she’s cupping his jaw in her hand and pulling his lips toward hers, falling into the affection like an inescapable gravity. The kiss is tender, slow and delicate. She clings to it with everything she has, because it’s all she can do. His mouth on hers, their legs intertwined - they’re the only things that make sense in the world right now. 

And this is when the feeling sinks in. She doesn’t want to need him like this. And yet, she does.

Notes:

pov you’re me, randomly thinking about this fic one day then going to the gdoc to discover that the next chapter is almost entirely written. so hi, welcome back after a year and a half, this is your update that this fic is not abandoned - even though i’m not really in the marauders or jily fandom spaces anymore, i fear i can’t let this baby go unfinished or it will haunt me for the rest of my life because i love it so much. anywho fun fact if you don’t keep up with my grishaverse shenanigans on here, i’m a whole ass lawyer now.

Notes:

come hang out with me on tumblr or instagram.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of and when you get me alone it's so simple