Work Text:
Lily Evans is a woman of reason.
She makes lists.
She has a study schedule colour-coded by subject and stress level. She tracks her potion ingredient inventory with alarming precision. She once made an entire spreadsheet to determine the most efficient seating arrangement for NEWT study sessions (Sirius was banned from sitting next to anyone).
So when Lily starts to notice... symptoms , she does the logical thing.
She starts cataloguing them.
Subject: Pandora Lovegood
Symptoms observed when in proximity:
- Elevated heart rate
- Dry mouth
- Inability to form coherent sentences
- Warm sensation in chest (may be magical, needs confirmation)
- Compulsive need to fix her collar / brush glitter from her cheek / tuck hair behind her ear
- Increased irritability when Pandora flirts with anyone else
- Daydreaming during History of Magic (unrelated to Binns, probably)
- Deep, irrepressible urge to kiss her ridiculous, beautiful, chaotic face
She hides the parchment inside her Arithmancy textbook, like a proper emotionally repressed teen. She does not intend for Pandora to find it.
But Pandora does. Obviously.
Lily walks into the library one afternoon to find her sitting cross-legged on a table, swinging her legs and holding the parchment with a crooked grin.
“Pandora—” Lily starts, heart already leaping into her throat.
“‘Deep, irrepressible urge to kiss her ridiculous, beautiful, chaotic face,’” Pandora reads aloud, in a dreamy tone. “Evans, I’m flattered.”
Lily makes a noise like a dying cat and lunges, but Pandora holds the parchment just out of reach.
“At first I thought this was a potions allergy,” she says cheerfully. “But then I got to the bit about wanting to snog me.”
“Give that back!”
“I added a note,” Pandora says, flipping the parchment over and presenting it to her with the pride of a girl who once named her carnivorous plant Gregory the Impaler .
In looping, ink-stained handwriting:
Condition: Terminal.
Treatment: Snogging. Repeatedly. Maybe forever.
Lily looks at the note. Then at Pandora. Then at the stupid little spark of glitter on her cheek.
“Well,” Lily says, breathless. “Far be it from me to ignore medical advice.”
Pandora beams. “You’re very responsible like that.”
And then Lily kisses her.
Hard. Thoroughly. Until the list falls to the floor and Pandora’s quill rolls off the table, and Madam Pince kicks them out for “excessive affection and disturbing the books.”
They leave the library hand-in-hand. Lily never does get that parchment back. Pandora frames it.
Follow-Up Observation Log: Subject Pandora Lovegood
By Lily Evans
Confidential. (Obviously.)
Symptoms Post-Initiation of Romantic Engagement (See: Terminal Condition, pg. 1)
- Elevated heart rate persists. Unclear if due to excitement or chronic cardiac distress. Will consult Madam Pomfrey if kissing frequency increases further.
- Smiling uncontrollably. Face muscles possibly damaged.
- Inability to focus on anything when she’s around. Especially when she hums. Especially when she’s wearing my jumper.
- Decreased patience for idiots. Increased tolerance for Pandora’s chaos. May be a sign of irreversible affection.
- “Butterflies in stomach” feeling has progressed to full magical zoo. Suspect at least one griffin.
- Desire to hold her hand at all times. Even during exams. Especially during exams.
- Kissing has become a primary form of communication.
- I love her.
(Oh no.)
(Oh yes.)
She stares at the final line for several long minutes, pen hovering. Then she closes the notebook, heart thudding, and shoves it under her pillow.
Pandora finds it two days later.
Not on purpose, of course—she was just “borrowing” Lily’s pillow because hers had “a weird grudge against her neck” and clearly Lily’s was “blessed by the moon or something.”
Lily walks into their dorm to find Pandora lying on her bed, cheeks pink, notebook open on her chest.
“I swear to Merlin—” Lily begins.
Pandora sits up, looking dazed and gleeful. “You love me?”
Lily freezes. “…I didn’t say that.”
Pandora flips the notebook toward her. “You literally said that.”
“It was in a draft. I was hypothesizing.”
“Well, I hypothesize that I love you back,” Pandora says with a soft, crooked smile. “Very conclusively. No further research needed.”
Lily sits down beside her, fighting back an overwhelmed grin. “You’re not supposed to read my notes.”
“You’re not supposed to leave love letters under your pillow, Evans.”
“That’s not a love letter. It’s a highly detailed personal report.”
Pandora leans in and kisses the corner of her mouth. “Mmhm. A very romantic personal report.”
She kisses her again. And again. Until the notebook slides forgotten to the floor and Lily decides that maybe not everything needs to be organized.
But just in case—Pandora later adds a sticky note to the front page:
Diagnosis confirmed.
Symptoms ongoing.
Treatment working perfectly.
It starts when Pandora finds an old scrapbook in the back corner of the library—wedged behind a self-biting History of Magic textbook and a very haunted looking photo album labeled "Do Not Open (Seriously, Don’t)" .
Naturally, she opens both . But she only brings the scrapbook back to the dorms.
“We’re documenting our love,” she announces cheerfully, dropping the dusty tome onto Lily’s bed like it’s a sacred text. “For posterity.”
Lily, halfway through color-coding her study schedule and stress-eating a chocolate frog, blinks. “What?”
“A scrapbook,” Pandora says. “Of us. For future generations to study and weep over, probably.”
Lily stares. “Isn’t that a bit—self-aggrandizing?”
Pandora shrugs. “So is being the Most Likely to Cause a Magical Revolution, and you didn’t seem to mind that title in the yearbook.”
Lily opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again. “Okay, fair.”
The first page ends up being a pressed flower from their last greenhouse detour. Pandora enchanted it to glow faintly when Lily touches it. Lily nearly cries, but insists it’s the pollen.
The second page features a meticulously inked list in Lily’s handwriting titled “Notable Pandora-isms” , which includes things like:
- Told Peeves the stars told her he’d meet his soulmate in a suit of armor.
- Convinced Slughorn her hair glows because she ate a cursed comet (he believed her).
- Called my mum a “blazing feminist icon” after reading one letter.
Pandora doodles little constellations in the margins, then adds a tiny note: Lily’s handwriting is so sexy it should be illegal.
The third page is a disaster. It contains a blurry photo of them kissing that someone ( probably Mary ) snuck during the Common Room Truth or Dare Game. Lily attempts to burn it in embarrassment. Pandora saves it with a stasis charm and captions it:
“Exhibit A: Proof that Lily Evans likes me.
We will now review it every day forever.”
There are receipts from Honeydukes, a napkin from their favorite corner table in the library café (with ink smudges from when Lily was grading practice essays), and a card with “You make my heart do terrifying things” in Pandora’s looping scrawl.
Lily insists on order—dates, notes, categories.
Pandora insists on vibes.
At one point, Lily’s measuring margins with a ruler while Pandora is charming the scrapbook to occasionally purr. They argue. Pandora ends it by kissing her on the nose.
“She’s so annoying,” Lily mutters an hour later, smiling helplessly as she glues in a sketch of them both that Pandora drew on the back of a Defense essay.
“You love it,” Pandora says from the floor, halfway buried in glitter and dragon stickers.
“I do,” Lily sighs, defeated.
And then—Lily sets aside her ruler, takes out her favorite quill, and starts writing a new page titled:
Why I’m Going to Keep Her Forever
- She brings me back extra toast from breakfast even when she’s late.
- She made me laugh so hard I snorted pumpkin juice in front of McGonagall.
- She looks at me like I invented the stars.
- She’s my favorite kind of weird.
She doesn’t show it to Pandora.
But she tucks it into the very back of the book, right behind a page labeled:
Wedding Color Palette Brainstorm (Too Soon?)
(Spoiler: it is not too soon.)
The Gryffindor Common Room, early evening. James is upside-down in an armchair for no reason. Sirius is painting Remus’ toenails black. Peter is trying to get a chocolate frog out of his hair. It’s chaos, as usual.
Enter: Lily and Pandora, grinning like they’ve just reinvented magic.
Pandora clutches the scrapbook like it’s a holy relic. Lily looks slightly embarrassed but also like she’s buzzing from twenty cups of tea and the sheer intensity of her feelings.
“We made a scrapbook,” Pandora announces.
Sirius, without looking up: “Is that a euphemism?”
Remus, distractedly flipping a page in his book: “Please say yes.”
“It is not ,” Lily says, primly.
James tilts upright, alarmed. “Wait. A scrapbook? Like… a romance scrapbook?”
“It’s art,” Pandora says.
“It’s madness,” Lily corrects.
“It’s both,” they say in unison.
They open the book.
Immediately, there’s an enchanted photo of Lily and Pandora kissing—complete with glitter effects and soft pink lighting. The photo sighs audibly when someone touches it.
Peter shrieks. “It breathed on me!”
Pandora beams. “It’s interactive!”
James squints at a page. “Did you label your first hand-holding moment as ‘life-altering palm intimacy’ ?”
“Obviously,” Lily says.
Sirius flips to a page with a pressed flower and a note that reads “She enchanted it to glow. I almost proposed on the spot.”
He stares. “I take it back. You are both a menace.”
Remus leans over and squints. “Wait—did you make a chart for how many times Pandora made you laugh in a day?”
Lily glares. “It’s called data collection.”
“She put me in a spreadsheet,” Pandora says proudly. “Under ‘Celestial Disruptions.’ ”
James clutches his chest. “You’re going to make me believe in love again. Against my will. ”
Peter, who’s fully tearing up: “Do I… do I get a page?”
“Yes,” Pandora says, flipping to a section titled “Supportive Chaos Gremlins.” Peter’s page has a doodle of him with a crown and a caption that says “King of accidental explosions and comfort snacks.”
Sirius mutters, “If I end up in that thing, I swear to Merlin—”
Pandora turns the page.
There’s Sirius. Mid-rant, gesturing wildly, eyes ablaze. A scribbled caption beneath: “He’s angry, but make it fashion.”
Remus, hiding a smirk: “You look majestic, Pads.”
Sirius sighs, dramatically. “Fine. But if I catch you two snogging over it again in my line of sight—”
Pandora kisses Lily’s cheek.
Sirius groans. James starts a slow clap. Peter offers them a celebratory jelly slug.
Somewhere in the background, the scrapbook starts humming a love song.
Remus shuts it gently. “That book’s going to end up in Hogwarts: A History, isn’t it?”
Lily just smiles, eyes sparkling. “We can only hope.”