dear lily evans...i love you

by theesteemedladydebourgh

Summary:

1978, without the war. Lily Evans and the soft, uncertain stumble towards love. James Potter, who fell long ago.
Winter. Summer. I love you.

Notes:

• For letthebookbegin.

hi hi! it's not july anymore (or really august even), but i finally managed to eke out one of my jily week pieces. ty hafsa for being a star 🥰
In things I thought I’d never say in fic notes, thanks to A.S. Cline for his translation of Virgil’s Georgics IV. Adding line numbers to the Virgil quote gave me vertigo ngl, because for a several seconds I felt like I was writing something for school. I promise/hope this is more interesting than my essays!
It’s not required—but! I do highly recommend anyone interested in poetry and in love stories to read lines 453-527 of A.S. Cline’s translation (it’s available for free online here) of Orpheus and Eurydice’s story, because it’s really beautiful and adds a lot of context to some of the themes and motifs of this fic.
For anyone not familiar, here’s just a brief outline of who the hell these two are, and I want to stress that the fic can absolutely be read without any prior knowledge! Orpheus and Eurydice were married, and Eurydice died. Orpheus loved her so deeply that he walked into the Underworld and bartered with Hades for her soul. Essentially, he was able to bring her back to life, but only on the condition that he didn’t look back to make sure she was there on the return journey to the real world. His fear/love got the better of him on the last steps, and he looked back to see Eurydice…which condemned her to death in the Underworld.
i was also very tired when i edited this, so lmk if there's any mistakes i missed in my sleepy state!

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as always, @theesteemedladydebourgh on tumblr! come talk to me about jily/mythology, or just say hi 🥰

Chapter 1: LILY

Orpheus: How will you remember?

Eurydice: That I love you?

Orpheus: Yes.

Eurydice: That’s easy. I can’t help it.

- Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl

---

LILY: the waiting before an i love you—what comes in the space between i don’t and i do.

---

PART I: he sang of you, sweet wife

---

// seventh year //

In her mind, she writes letters.

They sprawl out on the page, filled with paragraphs of eloquent description: this is what I feel about you, this is why I feel it, I know you feel it too.

It’s the sort of letter that would get a kiss in the rain, a run through an airport—

Tucked away in the quiet, fearful corner of her wandering mind, all it gets Lily is James Potter, walking away from her in the Arithmancy corridor.

His words echo after he’s left. They’re hard-edged, angry in a way she’s never heard directed at her before, even during the last weeks of fighting and tension and kissing and not-being…

“I love you. I can’t help it.”

It’s over.

The second the blind shock abates is the second he disappears, the second he’s gone. Then…all that’s left is desolation. Regret.

Me t—

Regret is so bitter. It stains, and even tears can’t eradicate the mark it makes.

He didn’t pause to look back.

---

November passes at a glacial pace.

Lily’s eyes are redder than they’re not, and she staunchly avoids the Great Hall between seven and eight in the morning—his preferred breakfast time—and the back of the Transfiguration classroom—his preferred seat—and that one armchair by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. That one is worse than the others, because she has very defined memories of sitting in his lap on that exact chair in mid-October. It was in the very late hours of the night, when everyone in the tower had already gone to bed, and they’d just sat there for hours despite the fact that they had their own common room elsewhere, talking quietly while the fire slowly died a flickering death.

It’s over, she thinks every morning when she wakes. She thinks of his last words to her too. I love you. I can’t help it. She thinks about what would’ve happened if she’d said it back, if she wasn’t so blind the last few months that she didn’t even notice—

It’s a cruel fact of life that he continues to exist outside of her—she wants to believe that when she doesn’t look at him, he’s not there. He’s not living, breathing, with the same mouth she once kissed, the eyes she’s spent hours memorizing the emotions inside. He’s there, in the corner of her eye. He was sullen and angry for a while, but now…

Now, on the rare occasion that their gazes pass as they go to great pains to manage Heads duties without talking at all, he’s just blank. 

Do you miss me at all? she wants to ask. Wants to cry, just so he’ll look at her. Do you still love me? Did you stop? Will you love someone else someday and I’ll have to watch you smile, kiss, all the things you used to do with me—

She wants to scream.

She’s going to be ill.

Lily leans forward until her forehead hits the cool desk and closes her eyes. The blurred noise of a classroom passed around her.

Footsteps pause. “Lily? You alright?”

“Fine,” Lily says. Mary’s voice was concerned, but not so much as she knew it would be if she knew. If her heart and her heartbreak and everything in between hadn’t been a secret—if she hadn’t made them a secret. Made James…

He was always her secret.

---

// fifth year //

12 June, 1976, Charms

I’m sorry.—JP

Evans.

Lily.

Please answer. Or—just read these, at least.

I’m sorry. Not about Snape because he fucking deserved it but

I’m sorry.

---

// sixth year //

3 October, 1976, Potions

Potter, can you try not to be a nuisance for once? Some of us are trying to take notes.—LE

As if you couldn’t pass this class with your eyes closed.—JP

Potter.

On one condition.

… I’m going to regret answering this, but what?

Call me James.

No.

That was a long time for a one word response. And why not?

Because.

It’s my name.

I’m aware. Just. No. You’re Potter, and right now you’re annoying me. I’m not responding anymore.

Evans, c’mon.

You call me Evans.

You’re responding, Lily.

Fuck off, Potter.

27 February, 1977, Ancient Runes

James. —LE

James Potter.

James Fleamont Potter.

Oh, stop. I know you’re reading these.

Hi, Lily.—JP

Lily Jane Evans.

Are we doing full names now? How very proper of us.

You’re doing this on purpose.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I can’t believe you volunteered us to go first.

C’mon, we’re the best team Ancient Runes has ever seen. Guaranteed O. Give it a little showmanship, we’ll have the entire class eating out of our palms.

What a nice, vivid imagery.

Lil, relax.

I’m relaxed!

You’re fidgeting. And you look ill.

That’s very rude. I spent a long time on my makeup this morning.

Looking ill doesn’t prevent you from being pretty, I mean. You just look nervous.

I’m fine. Fuck. Let’s do this, shall we?

That’s the spirit, Evans.

---

The summer before seventh year, she introduced James Potter to the Greeks.

He’s a posh boy, but he’s a magical posh boy, and though he’d heard of Homer in passing at some party or another, he’d never read any of them.

It was all just a bit ridiculous—James Potter, her friend, coming to visit her in drab, grey, Cokeworth, reading her crumbling, spine-bent copy of Electra on the creaky floor of her bedroom. Lily wanted to laugh the entire time, perched nervously on the edge of her bed, but trying not to look nervous.

She didn’t know why he made her nervous all of a sudden. (She knows now, of course).

“Quite a bloody tale,” James muttered after a while of silence. He didn’t sound put off, though. “Makes me think of purebloods.”

Lily snorted, and tucked her knees under her. “Oh, yes, they’d like this one.” She let her eyes scan her bookshelf, until her eyes paused on a thin blue volume that’s seen much better days. (Lily took it with her when the term began a few weeks later, because…because. James Potter makes her nervous).  Something clenched inside her, then she was standing to pluck it from the shelf.

“Here,” she said, offering it to James.

He looked up, blinking. It was bizarre being taller than him, with him sitting cross-legged. It was bizarre looking down on him, because James Potter wasn’t someone who was made to be looked down on.

“What’s that?” he asked, but reached out. Their fingers grazed and she inhaled and—when did James Potter start to make her nervous?

“Virgil,” she said and cleared her throat. “It’s—Latin, technically, but there’s a story in Book IV that’s….it’s Greek.”

James turned the volume over in his hands and she felt like she couldn’t breathe, seeing his tanned, calloused fingers slip across the worn blue cloth. He slowly flipped through the pages, just a brief skim, and she didn’t breathe at all.

James looked back up at her, sat in her bedroom. What a bizarre, breath-stealing scenario. “Is this one of your favorites?”

Lily hesitated, then nodded, helpless. “I’ve reread it a lot.”

“Then I’ll read it,” he said simply. Then he smiled and…

It’s a romance, she thought suddenly. She almost blurted it out, slipped from between unwary, longing lips, but—something cut her off.

James Potter was making her nervous. Making her think about romance. Making her think about his mouth. I have a boyfriend, even if he’s not a very good boyfriend, she thought and the thought hit her in the throat because why would she be thinking that unless she—

It all meant something and suddenly, looking at him sitting on her bedroom floor, Aaron-the-not-very-good-boyfriend so far from her thoughts, all grinning and holding her favorite book—that was terrifying.

---

// seventh year //

2 September, 1977, Heads Common Room

Figured I should break the ice after the summer, since we’re going to have to be working/living so closely together. Don’t worry, I won’t leave my dirty socks on the couch. Cheers —JP

Charming, James. And just talk to me in person next time, would you? Waking up to a House Elf with a note is bloody unnerving. (And I’ll come after you if you do) —LE

15 September, 1977, Transfiguration

Can we talk?—JP

About what?—LE

You know.

McGonagall is giving a very thrilling lecture on Animal Transfiguration right now, so…

We kissed. I kissed you.

Lily?

The lecture isn’t that thrilling.

You kissed me back.

Yes. I—I did.

Sorry.

Can we talk about this later?

Heads common room tonight? After dinner?

Okay.

Hey, Lily?

What?

Everything’ll be okay. I promise.

22 September, 1977, Ancient Runes

We need to get a handle on this.—LE

I agree. Handle on what?—JP

Us.

Oh, that. Hm.

Hm?? James, we can’t keep—

Snogging? Why not? We both seem to be enjoying it quite a bit, so.

Don’t interrupt me.

Quit hogging the parchment then. The entire point of sitting together was that we could talk without throwing pieces of parchment across the room like second years.

James.

Lily.

You know why we need to…stop.

No, I don’t. Do explain it to me again.

I just broke up with Aaron. You know how that ended. And I’m not saying that things with you would be the same, because we’re mates and that’s—well, you’re you. But I just…

You don’t want to get involved again?

Don’t say it like that.

I’m not saying it like anything.

No, but you look upset.

Lily, I’m not upset. I just want you to be honest about what you want.

I want…I’m tired, James. Exhausted, honestly. And things with us have (well, in the last year, at least) been so easy and nice…I don’t want to ruin that because I’m not ready for something. I don’t want to go back to how things were before, you know? I hated when we didn’t get along and all we did was shout. I love being your friend.

Do you understand?

James?

Yeah, I understand.

Oh. Okay. Good.

I have an alternate proposition, though. If you’re open to it.

Okay?

You like snogging me, yes?

Is that a trick question?

No, it’s a yes/no.

Yes. But—

Okay, good. I like it too. We don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for—we can stay friends—but…well, if we both like it, why do we have to stop?

I don’t get it.

Keep kissing me. Keep being my friend. Why does it have to be more complicated than that for now?

I…Okay.

Okay?

Yes. Let’s do that. But—let’s not tell anyone, okay? It would be too hard to explain.

James?

Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal.

Ha. You didn’t negotiate very hard there, Potter.

Wasn’t keen on pushing my luck. Hey, Lil?

Yeah?

Remind me to kiss you after class.

Laughing isn’t an agreement, Lily.

I’m waiting.

Oh for Merlin’s sake, I agree. Yes! Stop poking me, you madman.

3 October, 1977, Defense Against the Dark Arts

James. ’Subtle’ does not include putting your hand on my leg.—LE

Do you want me to stop?—JP

Well, no, but—

No one can see, relax.

I can see.

Am I distracting you?

Yes, you are rather.

Hm.

James.

You said you didn’t want me to stop.

Maybe I’ve changed my mind. What do you call this?

Complaining. Kicking up a fuss so you don’t have to admit you like it.

You’re incorrigible.

You like it.

Only because I like you.

Like me, do you?

Hush. It’s not big news that I fancy you, okay? I snogged you senseless just this morning behind that tapestry.

Sometimes people snog people they don’t fancy.

Well, I don’t.

You’re just taking the mickey, right? Of course I fancy you. You know that.

Yeah, I do.

Now pay attention. Some Head Girl you are. You’re distracting me.

I’m going to strangle you.

Nah, you won’t. You’d miss me too much. You fancy me, remember?

Oh, I’m so going to strangle you.

11 October, 1977, Charms

Are we okay?—LE

Why wouldn’t we be?—JP

You’ve seemed…off, recently.

I’m fine.

Oh, good.

You’d tell me, though?

If something was wrong?

Yeah, I would.

Good.

Good.

17 October, 1977, Transfiguration

You can’t seriously be mad right now.—LE

James.

Answer!

For fuck’s sake, it was one hug!

I think I can be a bit pissed, actually.—JP

He’s your ex, Lily.

So?

So, he doesn’t want to hug you in a friendly way. And if you don’t get that I’m certainly not going to waste my time explaining it to you.

James…

Not now, Lily. I’m not in the mood.

26 October, 1977, Potions

Thank you for the flowers. I loved them.—LE

I’m glad.—JP

You’re too nice to me.

Why would you say that?

Do you ever think about guilt?

Depends. Sometimes.

Oh.

Are you okay? You don’t look so good.

Tired. Lot on my mind.

Do you want to meet up after lessons? We do have an entire tower to ourselves…

Can’t, sorry. Quidditch practice.

Oh. Soon?

Yeah. Kissing’s the only fun thing right

Gotta pay attention now, we’re not all Potions prodigies.

1 November, 1977, Heads Common Room

Lily,

Can we talk? I have stuff I need to say to you. Tomorrow after class? I’ve got Arithmancy last and…well, I just need to talk to you.

—JP

---

The library is quiet except for the faint shuffling of pages—everyone is too afraid of Madam Pince’s wrath to make any noise. The snow of late November is swirling against the windowpanes, candles already lit against the early nightfall.

At this moment, Lily wishes someone would shout or laugh or—anything. She can’t stand this fucking quiet.

Her eyes blur and don’t focus on her page, and she doesn’t even start when someone sits down in the seat across from her. She’s less surprised thab she should be when she sees that it’s Sirius Black.

“What?” she mutters. It’s not friendly, but then she hasn’t exactly been his favorite person recently either. He’s rather furious at her, actually, on account of…well, on account of how she treated James.

Guilt is a constant companion in her throat these days. It hurts and burns, but she can never swallow it down.

“You need to talk to James,” Sirius says and he doesn’t sound angry.

It makes her look up from her books, just to blink and stare at him. “What?” she says again. It’s confused.

Sirius huffs, rolling his eyes. His jaw is clenched, but he doesn’t look angry either. “Talk to James,” he repeats slowly. “Now.”

Lily’s eyes drop back to her books. “I—no.” She blindly flips a page. “I can’t.”

He makes an irritated sound. “Evans—“

“Leave it alone, Sirius.”

“You’re being stupid,” he tells her bluntly. “He’s being stupid, but—you need to make the first move.”

“No. You—“ Lily wants to scream, but she just huffs, inhaling tightly. She glares at him. “You don’t understand anything about what happened or why we—“

“Lily, he loves you.”

And there it is. It hits like a punch, the guilt she can’t swallow down. Because she knew. Somewhere, deep inside her, where she didn’t want to dig or acknowledge, she knew. After all, what boy would try so hard to get her to like him, would agree to be a secret kept from all their friends for just a few paltry kisses? What boy would read her favorite books, talk to her for hours, smile at her in a way that made her stomach funny, as if she held some miraculous microcosm of stars and light in her hands.? As if she were something other than simply Lily Evans.

“It’s my fault,” she says to the books. Her eyes are burning, but she’s just stopped crying every morning— She can feel Sirius’s awkward gaze on her, but she doesn’t look at him or stop talking. “It’s…it’s my fault.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sirius says after a second. He sighs, then clears his throat. “Evans, you—he—“ he huffs, then mutters a swear. “I can’t with you two and this fucking game you're playing at. Idiots, the both of you.”

“It’s not a game,” Lily says, finally looking up. She knows her eyes must be red and she looks a mess. “I ruined it.”

“Then fix it,” he says with exasperation. “Don’t you—?” He gestures irately, the implication clear.

Her cheeks heat. “I…”

She thinks about Aaron and the screaming matches that had preceded their breakup. Years before, a word echoing in the air. Mudblood. She walked away that time, without ever looking back, even when he followed but—

She looks back in her mind constantly. Not for Severus Snape in particular, but for…everything. For regret. For her sister. For lost loves.

She hasn’t let herself look back at James yet, because that would mean that it’s truly in the past, it’s over, and one day she’ll get to say, “Once, a long time ago, for a brief moment, I belonged to James Potter.”

Her eyes burn.

Sirius huffs, and his chair screeches as he stands. “You’re both idiots,” he tells her flatly. “I don’t know why you’ve made this whole shitshow such a—such a shitshow, when he’s always been crazy about you.”

Lily bites her lip so she doesn’t respond.

Eventually, she hears another sigh, then the sound of Sirius walking away, steps aggravated.

She closes her eyes. The silence descends once again.

---

James doesn’t look at her the entire time. Not even when Nina Lewis is shrieking as the frogs jump from the case all over the dungeons, not even when Slughorn is blustering as he tries to control the chaos descending over the class. Not even when McGonagall storms down to see the commotion, and promptly gives Lily, James, and Nina detention.

“Of all the foolish pranks, right before the holidays,” the professor fumes, giving them all a glare. “Miss Evans, I am especially disappointed in you—“

“Professor, I didn’t—“

McGonagall doesn’t listen to Lily’s protests, even though she hasn’t done anything. It didn’t look like that though, she supposes. She and Nina and James were all standing quite near the mysterious case that someone had stashed in the corner, and it had popped open without any input from them, but then—

Pandemonium.

And he still wouldn’t look at her.

James’s jaw is clenched as McGonagall lectures them, his eyes fixed on the wall somewhere to the left of Lily’s shoulder. The second their professor is done (long after Potions had ended, and Slughorn has slinked back to his office), James takes off at a clipped pace, no glance spared for either her or Nina.

“My office at eight o’clock. All of you.”

Great, she thinks as she’s on her dismal way to the appointed place after dinner that night. An evening where it’ll be obvious just how much he hates me.

Sirius Black is stupid and foolish and he doesn’t know anything because James doesn’t love her anymore, and she didn’t deserve it when he did—

Her internal ranting is cut off by the sight of James by the doors of McGonagall’s office. He looks up at her arrival.

Lily’s steps slow.

His face is…something, for a split second, then its wiped blank. He looks down.

Something bordering between agony and crossness twists in Lily’s chest. Words rise behind her lips and she thinks maybe she would’ve let some of them out, for good or ill, if Nina and McGonagall hadn’t arrived at that moment.

“Just some sorting old essays for you tonight,” the professor says crisply. She gives them all stern looks as they file slowly into the spacious office. “Arrange them by school year, calendar year, and month. Miss Lewis, you can clean the blackboard. Some third years decided to test their Zonko’s Droobles on it.” She almost rolls her eyes.

“How long should we stay here?” It’s not the first time she’s heard his voice since their—breakup? Did it even count?—but it hits hard nonetheless. He’s speaking quietly, uncharacteristically flat, but it’s him. The same vowels and consonants, and she knows if she looked she’d see the same mouth, the—

She looks.

James’s top button is undone, and his tie is hanging loosely around his neck.

Fuck. Fuck.

She wants to hate him. She wants to swallow down this stupid guilt, this regret.

“Until curfew,” McGonagall says, and Lily shifts in surprise. That’s only an hour, but then their Head of House has always had a soft spot for them. “I trust you will behave yourselves?”

They all murmur agreements, then the door is clicking shut and the three of them are alone.

“Well,” Nina says, breaking the silence with nervous kind of giggle. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?”

Nina Lewis is a talker—she prattles constantly for the next hour as Lily and James take their seats on opposite sides of McGonagall’s desk. Lily makes an occasional hum of acknowledgement or interest, though she has no idea what Nina’s saying. James doesn’t say anything at all.

“—and it’s not that I don’t like Divination, but have you seen Morgan’s homework? He wants us to produce entire dream journals in three days, and I never dream after I’ve had milk for dinner, so I had to cut down on my dairy intake this week. But then I can’t sleep as well and Laverne was saying that that’s because—“

Lily’s fingers pause on the methodical, automatic sorting she’s doing. Her eyes dart up.

James’s head is bent as he does the same.

She lets out a breath, something hot and painful surging through her. She adds another stack to her May, 1962 pile.

“—she doesn’t even like Quidditch, either, which makes it even weirder that she’d try out for the team, you know? I tried to tell her! I said, Laverne, you can’t expect that it won’t be an airborne sport—“

She knows she shouldn’t, but she looks up again thirty seconds later.

James’s hands are still, his eyes on her. Something pained in the shape of his mouth.

Lily freezes, halfway through June, 1962.

James’s forehead tightens, but he doesn’t look away. Emotions pass in his eyes behind his specs, then his shoulders slump. He looks resigned, and that’s worse.

Lily swallows, suddenly fighting back tears.

Remember the detention we had together in September? she wants to ask. The one because you set off fireworks in the Great Hall and I got caught in the crossfire? The one where you kissed me for the first time?

James’s eyes go to her mouth.

Lily’s voice is quiet, uneven. “Do you still have my copy of Virgil?”

Nina is still talking, either not noticing or not caring that they’re not paying attention.

She sees James swallow. “Yes,” he says after a second, voice low. His eyes don’t leave her. “It’s in my room.”

It’s been an exercise in torture, living in a tower alone with him. She suspects he’s been sleeping in the boys dorm, though, because she hasn’t seen him at all.

“Oh,” she says softly.

James slips his fingers across a stack of yellowed parchment, a slow, methodic caress. “Do you want it back?”

Lily’s throat hurts; her eyes burn. “No, I don’t.”

He looks sad, she realizes. It’s a jarring shock, because she’s never seen him sad before—angry, stubborn, happy, arrogant…yes, but never hopeless.

Neither of them look away from each other across the desk. After weeks of silence and avoidance, she couldn’t look away if she wanted to. Her heart aches and her soul hurts and she just wants to be held by him. She wants time to rewind, back to when he first kissed her in that other detention. Instead of running like she did, she wants to say, Kiss me more. Kiss me in daylight. Kiss me out in the world. Kiss me, kiss me. Love me, and I’ll learn how to love you too.

James’s eyes gleam, and he’s hopeless and it’s her fault…but he’s not looking away either.

Something passes between them in the flickering candlelight of McGonagall’s office, Nina Lewis’s chatter in the background. A shared feeling, though they don’t touch or speak another word, and she has a feeling that he’s just as close to crumbling as she is, tower stones weighed down by emotion and gravity.

---

When the detention ends, by some silent agreement they both go the same way down the corridor. Lily murmurs goodbye to Nina, as does James, then three pairs of echoing footsteps become two and they’re suddenly walking a few feet apart.

They don’t talk, and Lily doesn’t make any complaint when he leads them down the stairs, past the quiet first floor corridors and out into one of the courtyards. The cold hits her at the same time that the white does—snow gleaming faintly in the light from the bright moon and the torches from the hall—and she inhales, shivering a little.

James glances back at the sound, pausing in the frosty center. “Sorry,” he says. “Is this too cold? I just—it felt quiet.”

“No, it’s fine,” she says. She’s hovering by the archway, but she makes herself take a step forward. “I…I want to talk to you. I have things to say.”

James’s face is once again closed off, but he’s not looking away from her. He exhales, shoulders settling. “Alright,” he says. A tacit invitation.

It’s really quite cold; she tucks her freezing fingers in her cloak, rubbing them together. Her nose must be red.

She opens her mouth. “I—“ Even though she’s spent most of the last few weeks thinking that she has no idea what to say to him, and she certainly hadn’t come up with a plan during the detention, the words suddenly spill out. “I’m sorry.”

James stills. “You’re…”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, helpless. She swallows, eyes beginning to burn. “I’m sorry that I—“

“I don’t want you to be sorry, Lily,” James cuts her off. He sounds exhausted, but his jaw is clenched. “I don’t want you to—to, fuck, confirm that you pity me, that this was all just about the physical side for you and—I walked away because I couldn’t hear that, okay? And now—“ he shakes his head, huffing. His nose is beginning to go red too.

Her mind is screaming at her to tell him. I don’t pity you, I pity myself. I hate that I’m like this, because I feel—

“Why did you walk away?” she asks softly. “You—we started arguing so fast and then you—“

I love you. I can’t help it.

James’s expression twists a little. “Yeah, that’s the point,” he says. “We can’t talk—you won’t let us talk! You turned it into snogging or started an argument every time I tried to bring up something real.”

Protests rise. “I don’t—“ Stop.

“You do,” James shouts. He’s angry now. “You do, you—why won’t you let me love you?” It’s harsh, bordering on agonized. Spat with an iron edge, cold as glittering star fire. “We get along great, I make you laugh, I make you happy, I know I do. I know I make you happy, Lily.” He spreads his hands—long fingers, calloused, familiar—and his voice goes soft. “I just—I don’t understand.”

Her eyes well with hot tears and she shakes her head silently. All that she can manage is his name. “James…”

He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head, then opens them. His cheeks are flushed, but she can’t tell if that’s from the cold or the conversation. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she says unevenly. She wipes at her cheeks with her shaking hands. “I’m so sorry I hurt you—“

“Don’t—“

"I know.” Lily inhales, straightening. “I am sorry, though. But not for the reason you think. I…” she hesitates here, and it’s only his continued gaze on her that lets the next words escape. “You’re right. You do make me happy. I just think I’m…fundamentally bad at relationships. That’s not a great explanation, I know, and you have no reason to accept that, but—I don’t know how to trust people, James.” She steps towards him, voice as loud as she can make it. Something in her is rattling, shaking. Her voice goes quiet.“I’ve only trusted a few, and they’ve all…let me down. One way or another. But I treated you badly out of this stupid, subconscious fear and I only realized how badly after it ended and I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe and—“

“Lily…” His voice is uneven, and his eyes flicker. She can see him pushing down emotion. She wonders if hope is one of them. If he’ll even want her anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, shaking and soft. She takes another step towards him. “I’m sorry, James.” Hear what I’m saying, she begs in her head. Hear what I still can’t say, even though I don’t know why. Don’t walk away without looking back. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to—to say these things to you or—“

“Lily—“

She cuts him off. “No, I need to say something.” She inhales, as deep as her lungs will fill with the cold December air, and looks at him. His familiar, beloved face, with its furrowed brow and the mouth she could trace with her eyes closed. “I am…I don’t know why I find this hard, but I do,” she says and her voice shakes a little. “It’s hard to say these things, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the—that I don’t—“ Her half panicked words cut off, choked to a halt. She’s not sure even she understands what she’s trying to say, but James’s face is softer than it was a moment ago.

Lily takes another deep breath. He’s not walking away. “I’m not good at this,” she confesses. “I’m not good at trust, or relationships. But..I want to get there. For you.” Her voice goes soft. “Will you let me try?”

From the night sky, snow flutters down, cold and bright and white. It melts on her cheeks, her lashes. She blinks to see him, to stop tears.

James is a still figure in the dark, looking at her. His brow tight, agony.

James Potter was not made to be looked down on; a picture of a hero of old, one with a wrinkled school shirt and an undone red and gold tie. One with crooked specs, a red nose, a fallible ego and unwary hands that have held her heart for too long.

That offer is all she has, as tender and insufficient as it is, and with each passing second her desolation grows deeper, the burning in her eyes hotter and harder—

James exhales, and then suddenly he’s moving, striding forward, pulling her into his arms.

Lily crumbles. She collapses, the guilt in her throat ground to rubble. Her fingers find his shoulder, grip his school shirt.

“Yes,” he murmurs into her hair. Her heart pounds and his voice is rough and—she feels, she knows, that they’re feeling the same thing right now. He’s gripping her too, and she can imagine he’s shaking, then she doesn’t have to imagine it because he is. “I’ll wait. If you try.”

“I will,” Lily says and it comes out a bit choked, tears suddenly tightening her throat. Her eyes sting. “I promise I will, I promise I want to be able—“

“Just promise me you’ll give this a real try,” James says, voice muffled. His arms are warm, cold snow fluttering against the back of her neck. “For real, Lily. I’m done pretending I don’t feel the things for you that I do—I’m done pretending I don’t love you.” He doesn’t draw away to look at her, but his words still trace their fingers down her skin, hold her cheeks cupped in his palms. “I love your smile, I love your mind, I love the books you read. I love how you kiss, how you laugh—Merlin, how you eat.”

She chokes on a laugh. “If it’s ice cream, that’s certainly not lovable,” she manages to say into his shoulder.

James’s body shakes with silent laughter, his hands gripping tight. The cold is melting away, enveloped by the warmth of his embrace. She’s a flickering candle, the wick long and unburnt. The flame wavering and unsteady, but lit. “I disagree,” he whispers and presses his lips to her hair. The snow falls around them. “I love it all.”

---

Her tender, sewn-together, insufficient heart does not heal so easily, of course.

She tries.

She tells Mary she has a boyfriend (a real, very-good one); she holds his hand in the corridors. She lets him kiss her first instead of the other way around—he does it with abandon, but he also whispers other things to her. Things that she’s got locked behind her lips, but that he’s somehow patient enough to wait for her to be ready to say.

In an empty corridor the week before they leave for Christmas break, they kiss against the stone walls.

She thinks it.

Thinks it.

Feels it.

Feels a lurch. Terror. Oh god—

Like he can read her mind, he murmurs against her mouth, “I love you.”

She inhales, grips his shoulders. “Keep going,” she whispers and he trails his lips across her jaw, a soft path of fire.

She’s completely and utterly unfair to him in this journey. She knows it and he knows it, but…she feels the fragility of this waiting period. Despite her unsteady words, there’s been an unnerving surety to James since their conversation in the courtyard. His shoulders are relaxed, and he smiles at her often.

She calls him out on it the night before they leave on the train home. “Why are you so okay with this?” she asks, sitting at one of the tables at the back of the library. “With…waiting?”

James raises a brow at her, an open book balanced on his crossed knee. “Well, I just…” he sighs.

“You doubt me?” Lily finishes. It's a question, though not a sharp or pointed one.

“No,” James counters sharply. He’s frowning. “I don’t. I—I think I mostly doubted myself, the first time around. I’ve spent so long—“ he cuts himself off, sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lily wants to argue, but he’s hitching back his smile and she feels the moment slip away.

"I wouldn’t be so okay with it all if I thought it was forever,” he says after a second. There's a faint grin on his face, but his eyes are warm. “I suppose it’s because of those books you read.”

Lily stares at him. “Sorry?”

“I think you read the classics because they’re sad and yearning and romantic,” James says, shrugging, “and you have this stupid, stubborn idea that you somehow don’t deserve that.”

Lily stares at him, blinking.

“You’re wrong,” he adds after a moment. His lips quirk. “Rare as that might be. We’re happy together, and I know that. So I’m willing to put in the work until you know you otherwise.”

Lily has to shake her head, releasing a breath. This boy. “You’re ridiculous,” she tells him. “And mad. Absolutely mad.”

He just laughs and grins, bright and wide. She still wonders at what happens in his head. “Perhaps. But Merlin, I love you,” he says and just looks at her, soft and affectionate across the library table.

Her cheeks flush with heat. “You’re getting awfully comfortable with that,” she murmurs to the tabletop.

“I’ve had time to,” he says without missing a beat. Pointed. Not unkind, just—amused. His grin spreads wider. “Waited months to say it. Christ, you have no idea, love.”

Except she does, somewhat, in the steady pounding of her heart and the smile she’s unable to keep from her mouth. The feeling spreads through her and a second later she gets up, rounds the table to settle into his lap. He accepts her without question, arm sliding around her waist, and she squeezes his shoulders tighter, head pressed into his skin. She inhales the smell of him, familiar and warm and here.

He loves her.

They’ve been so good and so easy recently that there’s room for tender silence, for feeling, and she tilts her head at him after a moment. “Hey, James?”

He hums, raising a brow.

She inhales. The warmth in her chest has spread through her limbs, soft and lingering, and she wants to dash his stupid (accurate) assessment of her reading proclivities to bits…

She leans in, close enough to touch. Her voice comes out soft. “James, I…”

There’s an expectant space, because she won’t be seeing him for two weeks tomorrow, and he knows that she’s dizzy with him most days.

“Yes?” James says, straightening. The look in his eyes, one of eager reciprocity. She can imagine the I love you too, ready on his lips.

Her chest tightens. Not yet.

Lily inhales, then trails off. Leans back in his lap. “I need to go meet Mary for dinner.”

He stares at her for a second, and outrage almost breaks on his face—then it disperses into exasperation, and he groans. “Evans, you’re killing me,” he says. His hand falls to the table and he almost looks desperate. Almost. If he didn’t already know.

Lily laughs, trying not to kick herself, and stands. She’ll let it be a joke, because the alternative is giving him a front row seat to her frustration. What’s wrong with me? “Potter, you lied about your feelings for me for, as you said earlier, months. After all that, I think you deserve to wait a little.”

He laughs, and that’s the greatest miracle of all. James Potter is some kind of glittering magic, that he’s willing to wait for her, taking it in stride with jokes.

On the train home, Mary interrogates her. “Have you said it back?” she demands. Her eyes had just about popped out of her head when the words I love you passed from Lily’s lips.

“No,” Lily says, letting out a breath. “I almost did yesterday, but—“

Mary gapes at her. “What? Why?”

Lily shifts. Her neck feels hot. “Because…I don’t know. It’s scary, I guess and—“

“Yeah, but even someone as besotted as James won’t wait around forever, Lily—“

“He knows.”

Mary makes a noise of exasperation.

“He knows,” Lily says, certainty clinging tight to her. She thinks of his smile, the way he tucks his hand beneath her chin to kiss her. That warm feeling, spreading from her stomach. Quieter. “He knows.”

---

Kissing presents a slight problem—which is as winter continues, Lily finds she wants to stop less and less. The severe testing of her willpower would be one thing, if James wasn’t clearly in the same boat. There’s a mingled hilarity and misery on both of their faces whenever they’d separate after an hour spent with limbs and mouths tangled together, that would eventually collapse into shared laughter.

She’s not sure why she’s waiting, but James never pushes her, though she wonders herself. It isn’t a matter of morals or shame or desire, so much as it is of…wariness. Everything about her and James, with each passing day, feels more and more permanent, and this feels like just one more thing that’s…

Well, it’s not permanent, but it’s certainly something. It represents something to her, the full depth of her trust in him.

In February, one such hour is spent in his half of the shared Heads dorm under the pretense of a Charms study session. It’s later on than they usually spend time together, and when her lips are swollen, her breathing is uneven and her clothes are significantly more mussed than before, night has decidedly fallen and her limbs feel lazy and tired.

James exhales and sprawls back on his pillows, a grin on his face. His shirt is untucked, and his hair is rumpled. “You’re terribly dangerous for my academics, Evans,” he tells her.

Lily scoffs, folding her legs under her. “Fuck off,” she says. “You never cared for your academics. If anything, you’re bad for mine.”

“You’ll get straight O’s anyways,” James scoffs, waving a hand. His grin turns foolish. “A little snogging just puts you in a good mood.”

Lily laughs, shoulders relaxing. His room is warm and softly lit (and a great deal messier than her own, but in a way that feels very James. The trail of Quidditch gear and books, because he does read, no matter what he says, and various Zonko’s products create an organized chaos that makes affection burn bright in her chest), and she doesn’t want to leave.

The words slip from her mouth. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Nerves immediately rush in, but Lily doesn’t let herself shift or look away from him.

James’s brow raises and he stares at her for a beat, then he smiles and reaches out an arm. “Come here, love,” he says.

Lily’s lips twitch and she scoots forward, falling onto the pillows next to him. She hears him laugh softly, then he’s shifting, an arm sliding around her waist, tucking her against him. He’s close and can probably see down her shirt, and he’s warm and safe and James.

In the morning, cold sunlight shines through the windows. She can feel his breath at the back of her neck, his hand loosely strewn around her hips. Lily watches the cold, wintery world through the panes of glass for a while after her eyes open. She’s content not to move, the warmth of her boyfriend and his bed surrounding her.

She knows he’s an early riser because of Quidditch, and on non-school days she’ll take any chance to sleep in, so it’s probably rare that he’s slumbering while she’s watching the early morning world pass on before them.

His fingers twitch at her waist, and Lily shifts just enough to cover his hand with her own. His skin is warm; she notes and finds the callouses on his thumb and forefinger from throwing the Quaffle. They make something hot, like cocoa or a steaming bath, bloom and spill inside her.

Lily nestles her cheek into the pillow. It should be odd that such a small mark, and one that’s rough and not particularly pretty, makes her feel this way.

It should be, but it isn’t.

James stirs a while later, when the Saturday morning has slipped from very-early to early, and his first move is pressing his mouth against the space between her shoulder and neck. His mouth is soft, warm. “Morning,” he says, voice groggy.

Lily exhales. “Morning,” she whispers back.

Their legs are tangled together beneath the sheets, his feet a good distance below hers.

The warmth, the heat, in her chest burns brighter.

“James?” she says, eyes still on the cold, icy window. She waits until he hums a sleepy answer. “I love you.”

He goes still. "You—" His voice is rough, stunned.

She twists to look at him, brushing her fingers down his cheek. "I love you," she repeats, softer. She doesn't get the change to say the rest of what she was thinking—I'm sorry it took me so long. You knew, didn't you?—because her mouth is soon occupied with laughter and kisses, but it doesn't mater. It fades into the winter morning.

It’s the first step. She knows, because it’s James and it’s her and she loves him, that she’ll take the other first steps soon.

---

PART II: not for nothing does divine anger harass you

---

The Underworld

The insubstantial shadows, and the phantoms of those without light,

came from the lowest depths of Erebus, startled by his song,

as many as the thousand birds that hide among the leaves,

when Vesper, or wintry rain, drives them from the hills,

mothers and husbands, and the bodies of noble heroes

bereft of life, boys and unmarried girls, and young men

placed on the pyre before their father’s eyes:

round them are the black mud and foul reeds

of Cocytus, the vile marsh, holding them with its sluggish waters,

and Styx, confining them in its nine-fold ditches.

~ Georgics, Book IV, 453-527 (Orpheus & Eurydice), Virgil

---

James Potter is vortex of emotion, but Lily Evans exists outside of him too.

The other thing about being a girl raised on books, on her own merits, on mistrust, is that it demonstrates itself in a self-righteous streak, a determination to change things, ever since she was a small child. The wizarding world is glittering and shining, a gleaming orb of magic and intrigue, but with each year she spends in it, she can see the cracks. The festering injustices, the hairline fractures.

Mary started it. Or rather, what happened to Mary started.

Sitting in the Hospital Wing in the weeks after, her stockings sagging around her ankles, circles under her eyes from O.W.L.s, her friend’s hand clasped in hers, she thought: I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I won’t let it.

The force that she thought this alarmed her, fierce and ripping through her chest until only frayed nerves remained.

Mary’s head rested on her shoulder, face pale, hands still shaking from Mulciber’s curse. “What’re you thinking?” she whispered.

Lily squeezed her friend’s hand tight. The words came out without thinking, and she was shocked when they did. “I want to be an Auror.”

Mary shifted, and she could feel her surprise. “You—what about Healer training?”

“I want to make a difference,” Lily said simply. She stared at the white curtains blowing softly in the early summer wind, the sunshine spilling into the quiet hospital. She didn’t know how to articulate that the thought of years spent in rooms like this, quiet and bright and blank, with people who were slowly dying or healing or hurting…

The world would go on without her, and she’d try and try to stem the bleeding, even as it pooled onto the pristine white floors under her feet.

She especially didn’t—and still doesn’t—know how to explain that there’s…a vengeance, almost. Self-righteous, James had called her once, back when he was just Potter. Wishing to save others, her mum clicked her tongue when Lily came home with detention and a bruised elbow after an incident with Tommy Bertram in primary school.

In the Hospital Wing in 1976 with a fragile and battered Mary Macdonald tucked beneath her arm, her self-righteousness and her determination and her vengeance all caught up to her.

If they wish me to be an outsider in this world, then I will show them all, she thinks fiercely. I will make it better. I have to.

The next day, Lily went to McGonagall and spoke to her about changing her plans for N.E.W.T.s.

Three months later, the brand-new book list for Defense Against the Dark Arts held in her hands, she looked out at Diagon Alley in the sun, and something jolted inside her. It was uneven and terrifying and…

It was the inverse of love, at the same time that it exemplified the feeling. It was her love for Mary, for magic, for the wizarding world she fell in love with at age eleven. It was vengeance and determination, sharp teeth for the bitter injustices of the world. It drew a bloody line through her childhood dreams, even as it cradled the possibilities of them in her white-knuckled hands. It…

Well, it’s still there.

---

“Fucking shit,” Sirius mutters. He’s scowling at the dregs of tea in the rose-patterned cup, and as she watches he raps it sharply against the edge of the table.

Lily swallows a laugh. “Watch it,” she warns. “Morgan will have your head if you disrupt the tea leaves.”

“Apparently I’m going to lose my head anyways,” Sirius mutters flatly.

This time she can’t stop the smile. She studies her own tea leaves, then glances at her textbook. “I’m…going to open a Pygmy breeding farm in my twenties. Apparently.”

“Shit,” Sirius says. “James is allergic.”

“Oh, yes, that’s the only problem with that scenario,” Lily says dryly. She shuts her textbook with a sigh and swirls the dregs of her tea. “Farming’s probably a sight easier than D.M.L.E., though.” It’s funny how her anxiety slips out in casual remarks. James says she’s nervous about Auror training entrance results coming out in a week. She thinks he’s right, but she just scoffs to his face. Ah, love.

She feels rather than sees Sirius look at her, something odd coming over him.

She looks up. “What?”

Sirius’s lips twist to the side, a strangely contemplative look on his face, mixed with a grimace. He sighs, then leans forward. The cloying air of the Divination room surrounds them, though the windows have been propped open to let in late spring air. “You sure about the whole Auror thing, Evans?”

Lily stills. “Why?” she says after a second. Her shoulders have locked, defensiveness prickling over her. “Do you think I can’t do it?”

“Course not,” Sirius says, reeling back as if insulted. He’s scowling. “You’re a fearsome bird, Evans.” He sighs, propping his chin on his hand. “It’s…fuck, it’s all fucked, isn’t it? The system?”

Lily looks at him for a long moment. “Of course it is,” she says, voice soft. “But…” she clears her throat, something pinching in her chest. She wonders if he can see it, the thing that floods her whenever she considers the slightest idea that the world could continue on, that she couldn’t do something. “It won’t get better if people don’t try.”

Sirius grunts, then swirls his tea dregs.

Lily shifts, skin still prickling. “You disagree?” she says sharply.

Sirius looks up. “No,” he says after a moment, slow. “I—“ he cuts himself off. His hair falls over his brow. “I think you’re…hopeful.” He pauses over the word, and she knows with a burst of amusement that that’s not the first thing he wanted to say.

“Foolish?” she suggests.

“Probably,” Sirius says, then downs his tea with a grimace. He coughs. “But I reckon that’s what it takes, isn’t it? To do something.”

Lily takes a sip of her own tea, and makes a face. Fuck, it’s bitter and burning— “Thanks,” she says hoarsely.

Morgan descends on them within seconds, shrieking and flapping about the sure destruction that will reign down on them. The professor seems not to care that both she and Sirius are in perfect health, and in no danger of collapsing with Dragon Pox or Manic Pixie Disease (whatever that is).

---

The weather is dismal. It’s April, which should mean the blooming of flowers, but all it has done lately is rain, and Lily finds it indicative of many things in life right now (she's stressed and tired more often than she's not).

But it's not indicative of him.

James’s fingertips are pressed to the inside of her wrist, followed by the soft brush of his mouth. He’s lying on his side, sheet carelessly dipping over his hip while she mirrors him, hand outstretched and cupped in his. His head is bent. Lips on her skin.

“Are you going to move?” she asks him. She does a little wriggle, as if she’s trying to sink into the mattress, into the warmth of his bed. Outside his room, rain plunks against the windows.

She feels his smile, his nose brushing against her wrist before he glances up. There’s just the flash of his eyes, warmth and looking right at her. “No, I’m rather content,” James murmurs.

“You’re snogging my hand.”

His fingers slip along her wrist, up her arm, over to her shoulder to trace delicate fingers down her back. “I’m admiring,” he corrects, but he finally drops her wrist to kiss her fully. Lily twists slightly to meet it, biting back her own smile, the slight rush of giddiness at the warm bed and the boy and…all of it.

A few lovely seconds later James pulls away with a sigh. He’s already frowning.

“You have practice,” Lily guesses. She shakes her head, falling down onto her stomach and pressing her cheek to the mattress. “You should just abolish the whole thing—there aren’t very many matches left, for Merlin’s sake—“

James starts laughing. “That’s the whole point,” he insists, but kisses her once more, hard on the mouth. He groans softly and his fingers on her shoulder contract. “I’ll come back soon. And we can do some more of this.”

Lily’s smile is imprinted against the soft sheets, and the warmth of it spreads through her bones, the bed, the room. “Okay,” she says softly.

Right after James gets out of bed, he looks back. Smiles.

The rain pours down harder.

---

The translation is arguably irrelevant—she was working on her Ancient Runes assignment, bleary eyes carefully marking the difference between ancient characters, and Greek, while also ancient and fascinating, doesn’t have a thing to do with Professor Vector’s assigned 15 inches.

The Greeks had their own magic, though. Their own gods, though she’s not sure those exist.

James still has her copy of Virgil’s Georgics upstairs, but she’s got a Greek translation of it lying on her lap in front of her, next to a borrowed copy of the English. Her eyes slip down the symbols she only knows vaguely—some magical curse-breaking is rooted in Greek, and she’d looked into it as a career sometime in sixth year before deciding it had too many books for even her tastes.

‘His will conquered, he looked back, now, at his Eurydice.’

Her eyes trace, find Eurydice’s line. ‘…stretching out to you, alas, hands no longer yours.’

She exhales, unsteady and slow and her fingers press to old parchment. What makes love reciprocal? she wonders. Is it just that it is spoken?

What would happen if a love grew in the quiet, in the space of only bodies and hearts? Would it still be felt?

She knows the answer to this, though, because it was how she and James began. After. How they began after it had already ended. Were they anything before, or were they merely two people, like delicate blooming flowers in the rain, reaching for each other but—drowning. Petals sodden, never able to touch.

If it’s not spoken, he walks away.

James sighs and shifts on the other side of the couch. Her eyes raise.

“Do you ever think about the world going by?” she asks, voice suddenly splitting the silence of the Heads common room. Her back is pressed against the soft cushions.

“What do you mean?” James asks, lifting his head. He looks slightly sleepy, hair mussed.

“I mean…like things are passing you. Like time keeps happening, even if you can’t keep up with it.” Her cheeks heat and she fidgets with the pages. “Never mind. That’s silly.”

“No, it’s not,” he says and shifts as if he wants to move. Towards her. Never away. His eyes are steady on her. Warmth fills her, because God, she loves him. She loves that he’s her boyfriend, that he exists and he's hers. “I think about that.”

“You do?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “The world keeps happening, doesn’t it? Nothing we can do.”

“Sometimes I like that the world happens regardless of what I do,” she confesses. Their voices float through the softly sunlit common room, carried by sharp, cold spring air from the open window and the absence of echoes of other students. “That…it’s not on me to make things happen. But other times it—it terrifies me, that the world moves on and I could be—I don’t know. Left behind, or—“

“I’d never leave you behind,” James says fiercely, straightening and he moves suddenly. He shifts until they’re almost touching. The book slips, presses against his thigh. Lily tilts her head back to look up at him. “Never,” he repeats. Soft. “Never, Lily.”

---

June breaks. It’s warm and bright (for northern Scotland, at least), and N.E.W.T.s very nearly give her grey hairs, but then it’s mid-month and it’s over and the days are long and it’s almost over.

Call it her boyfriend’s bad influence on her, or simply the carefree relief of someone who doesn’t have to sit before a single Ministry assessor for at least a summer, but Lily suggests skipping class (why they even have classes after their exams, she’ll never know) on the Tuesday before they’re due to leave Hogwarts.

James agrees readily, grin bright and eager, and they slip out of the bustling castle to the green shore of the lake.

“Finally some sun,” she sighs, tilting her head back to feel the warmth on her face as she toes the line between grass and the rocks that lap against the waves. Her eyes pause on the iron blue water stretching out past the beech tree that they’re sitting under.

James is silent—too silent.

She looks over at him. “James?”

He’s the same as he’s always been in her mind, since she met him at eleven, so it almost stuns her for a second to take him in. That he’s tall, that his shoulders have broadened a bit, that he’s got a hint of scruff on his jaw when he hasn’t shaved. His eyes are faraway, though. “This is where we were,” he says lowly, and glances at her. “O.W.L.s.”

Lily swallows, the bitterness of their past stinging her fingers like a passing bee. “Yeah,” she says, keeping her voice even. “It is.”

James’s eyes travel over the scene. She can see the guilt in his eyes, and she wonders if it feels like the emotion she couldn’t swallow last fall. Or maybe it’s a different beast, his guilt. The conflicting paradoxes of James Potter.

“We’re different,” she says though. Her voice is soft, and she reaches out to brush her fingers down the back of his hand. “You know we are.”

James inhales, slowly lets it out. His specs reflect the color of the sky, sepia-tinted blue. “Yeah,” he says and he almost smiles. “We are.”

Lily’s eyes return to the water. It gets deep deceptively quickly, she knows that from years of watching others swim in the lake in the beginnings of summer. She’d never participated, though Mary had.

I’m leaving Hogwarts in five days.

She grins suddenly, an idea forming as her heart pounds with anticipation. She tugs on James’s hand to get his attention, then steps away and toes off her shoes.

“Lily, what are you doing?” James laughs, watching her.

She smiles at him, hair ruffled in the wind. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it on the grass beneath the beech tree. Bra and knickers follow. Her gaze is warm, bold and bright as summer sun. “Well, come on then,” she says and jumps in the water.

The cold engulfs her immediately and she tries not to splutter when she emerges, hair plastered to her face. She can hear him laughing, loud and bright, then there’s a second splash—she shrieks, then breaks into laughter too—and a moment later arms are catching her around the waist.

“Oy, stop,” she says, but doesn’t fight him. She even leans back, settling against his chest as their legs kick to keep them afloat. She breathes in, eyes taking in the painfully blue sky, the cold burn of the water, the green everywhere.

“I’ve been a bad influence on you, haven’t I?” James says into her neck. She can feel his smile on her skin.

“The worst,” Lily says. “I should get rid of you immediately.”

Their fingers skim through the water like they’ve skimmed through so many pages of books, cold blooming and swirling around their bare limbs. It’s beautiful and her chest hurts and she feels stingingly alive and young, but—

“Can I confess something?” Lily says to James, twisting to wrap her arms around his shoulders.

“Of course,” he says, kicking lazily to keep them afloat.

Lily squeezes her eyes shut and laughs pathetically. “I’m so cold.”

He just laughs. “Oh, thank fuck, me too,” he says, shuddering a little, and starts tugging them back towards the shore. “Scotland in June is not meant for swimming—“

She’s laughing and dripping, shivering all over as the cold air hits her bare skin, but then her feet hit green grass and they’re collapsing on their discarded clothes on the shore. The laughter floats away into the clear, blue sky, the gently whispering leaves of the beech tree.

Lily catches her breath, leans back onto her elbows. Her wet hair is clinging to the fabric of her white school shirt—the only piece of clothing she’d struggled into, though it doesn’t do much for the cold—and she exhales.

Sun and flowers and green. Cold spring air.

She wants to fall onto her back, sift her fingers through the grass. Not to sink into the earth, but just to lay upon it and feel the world blooming around her.

She does just that. The grass tickles her fingertips, her bare thighs, and her hair soaks through the fabric of her shirt. The sky floats on endlessly.

She feels something prickling at her and a moment later she looks to her right. James’s grin is soft, edged with humor and affection as he sits in his pants. He’s holding out his robes. “Here,” he says. “You must be cold.”

Lily takes the robes, but she doesn’t let him let go, instead pulling him into her. James’s laughter is captured by her mouth.

The early afternoon slips by on the shore of the lake, and they sit there until their hair has long dried, bare legs outstretched beside each other.

At some point—maybe that point was years ago, because he always has been—she becomes aware that James is looking at her.

She looks back. A smile pulls at her mouth without her even noticing, until she feels the stretch in her cheeks. Soft sunlight shines down on them from behind the green leaves, and she doesn’t have to think before reaching for his hand. She doesn’t have to hesitate or wonder.

James trails his fingers through hers, before lacing them softly together. He squeezes once. Their hands rest in the bright grass.

“What is it?” Lily asks quietly.

James exhales, then shifts. “Why does there have to be anything?”

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m quiet sometimes.”

“No, you’re not. Unless you’re plotting something.” She glances at him. “Are you plotting?”

James’s lips swoop to the side, a quick arc, and he laughs a little. “No, I’m not,” he mutters. “I’m…” He looks out at the lake, the swaying branches in the wind.

Lily’s heart clenches, anxiety beginning to prickle, but his hand is still warm in hers and surely bad things couldn’t come on such a summer day?

She waits for him to continue.

“I got an offer from the Arrows.” James says it quickly, his head tipped towards the shore instead of her, but then his eyes dart over to see her reaction. He’s terribly anxious about it, she can suddenly see.

Lily lets the words wash over her, shoulders settling down, then she laughs. It’s soft and bright, and she draws her hand out of his to brush it over his cheek. “Merlin,” she says. “You—James, that’s incredible.”

“It’s just training and reserves this season,” he adds quickly, but there’s an energy coming over him, a restless buzz, a brightness in his eyes. He’s like a bird on the ground, desperate to be back in the sky. “If that goes well…I could start for next fall. Magnus Doors—he’s the scout—he came to see some matches this year, and he saw the finale against Ravenclaw and I guess he liked what he saw, so he wrote me—“

“Oh my God,” Lily laughs breathlessly and tips her head back. The sun warms her cheeks. “James, you’re going to play professionally.”

He’s grinning now, and then he laughs too. “I am,” he says and his voice is incredulous. “I’m going to play Quidditch and you’re going to singlehandedly change the Ministry and we’re going to do it all together.” His voice turns certain, iron-edged. He’s sure of that, but…

Lily looks over at him. “We are,” she says and it’s surprising how unsurprising her easy agreement is. How well she’s settled into loving him, into belonging with him. How much that future, sprawled out between their bodies on the grass, shines like a long-held dream. “Why were you hesitant to tell me?”

James goes still. “What do you mean?”

“You were waiting,” Lily says. It’s not pointed or upset; she’s just a bit confused. “It’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” James says, letting out a breath. “It just…I know Auror training doesn’t start until October and we’d planned this summer together that I—fuck, I want to do that, spend all that time with you, but…”

“But?”

He grimaces. “The season starts in September,” he says. “Training begins a month before, so…27^th July. I have to be in Brighton then.”

Lily goes still. Her heart falls a little. “Oh,” she says after a second. 27^th July. It’s the 9^th of June…meaning they have a little more than a month and a half together. Six weeks in the world outside of school, where she’s sure her anxieties over Auror training will overwhelm her, where she’ll deal with her difficult sister and yearn to spend all her hours and nights with James and actually be able to do that.

“Oh,” James echoes, then sighs.

The breeze blows over the Hogwarts grounds, bringing with it the cool summer smell—grass, leaves, the fresh scent of the water, the faint smoke from the groundskeeper’s cottage—and the world feels unbearably small. She can’t wait to leave, at the same time that she wants to stay here forever. Merlin, she’d taken it for granted just how much time she’s able to spend with James here, with Mary, even with bloody Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

She’s not truly any older than she was a few weeks ago, but she suddenly feels very grown, very adult. It shrinks in her chest, tight and hurting, and she lets out a breath, then twists until she can wrap her arms around James’s shoulders. She buries her face in his shoulder. “Stop,” she says, voice muffled. “It’s okay. We’re okay. Six weeks is enough time and—we have time.”

“I know,” he says, voice low. He sounds like his thoughts are faraway. “We do.”

Lily’s palm settles over his chest, presses down on the damp fabric of his school shirt. “James,” she says softly and lifts her head. His specs are on straight for once, and that twinges something in her. She wants to knock them slightly off balance with a kiss, bring his teenage whimsy and recklessness back to life—because for all his faults, that’s the way she loves him. Unbreakable and unbound, grinning and bright. “Come back to me.”

His eyes shift over to hers, warm. His lips lift slightly. “I’m here,” he says quietly.

James Potter shouldn’t ever be quiet. 

“Tell me I’m right,” she commands. Her finger curl in his shirt, anchoring him to her.

James huffs a laugh. “You’re right,” he says and shifts to slide his own arm around her. “You always are.”

“Tell me you love me.” Her voice is softer, chin settling on his shoulder.

He doesn’t hesitate. It slips from his lips as easily as if he’s been made to say it—as if the months he’d felt it, the months she’d been too afraid to hear it, have made the words familiar and well-worn. “I love you,” James says. The summer wind blows across the Hogwarts grounds, parting around them. He leans in, brushes his mouth over her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. Lily’s eyes flutter shut, heart pounding. She feels the giddy urge to laugh. “I love you.” Softer. “I love you.”

“Good,” she manages to say after a second. She twists, moves her hand from his chest to his jaw, guides his mouth to hers. The kiss is brief, warmer than the sunlight. “I love you, too.”

Perhaps it’s true enough that arguments could be made for who loved who first, for who made the most mistakes. For whether his love is deeper, or hers is truer. She won’t deny that sometimes she’ll think about that.

But it’s summer. The grass is bright and green and soft beneath them. James Potter’s mouth is shaped for hers. The feeling spills out from a spot behind her ribs, shining and euphoric and impossible to find a start or an end.

Notes:

Next up:
JAMES: the aftermath of love, its soft hollows and steady plains. the i’m here, i’m here, i’m here and i love her feeling. the pearl-shine, the fall, the collapse. (or, the summer after an i love you)

 

spotify playlist!

 

as always, @theesteemedladydebourgh on tumblr! come talk to me about jily/mythology, or just say hi 🥰