Work Text:
As they say, two can play
But keep that song away from me
They walk back to the common room in silence.
He seems to be following her unspoken lead of not speaking; periodically she allows herself to steal glances sidelong towards him. Considering him, perhaps. Weighing him, and all he represents, in her mind.
“So,” he says after a while, breaking their silence. “I s’pose I should probably be helping you with patrol timetables and that, right? We can, I dunno, take turns so you’re not doing all the work.”
Lily feels a brief flicker of pleasure and nervousness at his words. “Er, that’s alright,” she says, for some reason. “I can do it, it’s not exactly difficult. And I know everyone’s names, so it’ll just be easier….”
“Fair point,” he says, nodding. “I s’pose ‘scrawny Hufflepuff with bad haircut’ isn’t really an appropriate thing to put in writing.”
She laughs. “Poor old Hodgkins, his haircut’s not that bad.”
“And yet you knew exactly who I meant,” he says, grinning. “Anyway— least I can do’s coordinate Quidditch practise timetables with yours, for my own sake. And Daren’s.” He sighs. “Looks like I’m in for a lot of exciting scheduling this year.”
“Looks like,” Lily agrees. “Especially with N.E.W.T.s coming up and revision to take into account.”
“Oh, you plan on studying for those, do you?”
She laughs again. “What do you plan on doing, then?”
“Coasting on my enormous intellect, as per usual.”
“God, you’re so full of it.”
“Ah, well,” he says, and stops. He looks at her. “You wouldn’t fancy me so much if I wasn’t.”
Lily glares at him with all the exasperation she can muster. “It’ll be less and less by the second if you keep on like that.”
“Yeah, right,” he says. “Sing me another one, Evans. I’ve got your number now.” His gaze roams over her, finally dragging up to her face. She feels the air stutter in her throat but stares back, impassive as she can manage.
He breaks away and starts walking. “C’mon,” he says. “It’s getting late.”
Lily follows. “Like that’s ever stopped you wandering about when you shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, but that’s the point. Now I’m meant to be wandering about after dark. Takes all the fun right out. Look, through here, it’ll be quicker.”
He gently pushes against a bookshelf; with a soft whisper, it scrapes outward along the floor, revealing a narrow stairwell behind.
“I had no idea this was here,” Lily says, following him up. He shrugs. Up and up they go. She keeps her eyes on his back. Finally, they emerge on the sixth floor.
“That’s handy,” she remarks, looking back at the bust of Hildegard of Bingen that conceals the passageway. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
They climb another, wider flight of stairs to the seventh floor. They walk. Lily, seized by a gust of recklessness, reaches for his hand. He grins as if he’s trying not to grin, and looks forward.
As the Fat Lady’s portrait comes into view, they let go. The Fat Lady is asleep, or pretending to be. They stop beside her and regard each other.
“Well,” Lily says. “This is it.”
“For now,” James says cheerily. Then he grows more serious. He reaches out and moves a piece of hair from her face. “Listen, Evans— whatever happens… I do care about you, you know?”
She nods, and allows herself to take a step closer to him. She presses a soft kiss to his lips.
“Right then,” he says, trying and failing not to look pleased with himself. He stands in front of the gently snoring Fat Lady. “Semper idem.” She doesn’t move. “Oi! Semper idem!”
The Fat Lady opens an eye and glares down at him blearily. “Always the same,” she grumbles. “I’ll never get a decent night’s sleep with you lot around.”
“It’s alright,” Lily says, stepping beside him. “We were s’posed to be out, on patrol.”
“Oh, well… if you say so, dear,” says the Fat Lady. She yawns widely, then swings open. “Go on then.”
James gestures that she should go first, and Lily does. The common room isn’t totally empty— a few stragglers remain, including James’s mates, who call for him at once.
“Well, night, then,” Lily says hurriedly. “Er— see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he says. She can feel him staring after her as she rushes up the stairs.
The next day, she scribbles James Potter below her own name, again and again, where she can. Each time she lifts quill from the final ‘r’ it seems more real. She hands the month’s patrol timetable to Professor McGonagall. Then she hurries away before she can change her mind.
It’s been about a month of the whatever it is with James Potter, and Lily has reached no conclusive decision other than to continue to allow it to occur. And, in fact, by way of scribbling his name below hers, again and again, to enable it.
“Interesting timetable,” he remarks to her one day outside the Charms classroom.
“You reckon? I hadn’t realised names and dates were so fascinating to you.”
“Not as a rule,” he replies. “But as far as my own name’s concerned, I tend to pay attention to the when and where of it all. And the who.”
“What about the why?” Lily says coolly, keeping her eyes on Sirius and Mary nearby.
“Well,” he says quietly. “I reckon the why’s fairly obvious.”
“Do us a favour, Potter, and get over yourself.”
He just grins. Lily shakes her head, and is relieved to see Flitwick opening the classroom door.
Charms, as ever, is a conveniently distracting class, and while practising the Atmospheric Charm she manages to only shoot a couple covert glances in James’s direction. Very very few.
“Oh god, sorry!” says Bethan Edris, a Ravenclaw prefect and Lily’s partner, as the little raincloud she’d summoned dumps a quart of water onto Lily’s head before she can react.
“My fault,” Lily says, cursing herself. She waves her wand, thinking meteolojinx recanto as hard as she can— the raincloud dissipates. “I was distracted.”
With Bethan’s help she hurriedly dries off her hair and clothes. It might be her imagination but she can almost feel James’s gaze on her, can perfectly imagine his amused expression, even though she refuses to look over…
“It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?” Bethan comments.
“Oh, no, I’m just a bit scatterbrained sometimes…”
“No,” Bethan says amusedly. “I mean James Potter. Being Head Boy, you know? I thought it’d be Sam Abbott for sure…”
“Er, right,” Lily says. “Well, I’m sure Dumbledore had his reasons. But I suppose it is a bit unfair, isn’t it…”
Bethan shrugs. “At least it’s not Wilkes and Selwyn, I suppose… but that lot… they’re all a bit odd, aren’t they? They’re so mysterious.”
“You think they’re mysterious?” Lily says, and Bethan goes bright red.
“Not like that,” she says. “I— well, don’t tell anyone, but I asked Remus to Hogsmeade a few years ago, and he practically ran away from me.”
Lily feels a wave of sympathy. “Oh, Beth, it’s nothing to do with you, I promise. Remus, he’s… he’s just got his own issues, hasn’t he? And you know us Gryffindors, I bet he thought he was being all noble or a martyr or something.”
Bethan laughs. “Well, that’s what I mean. They’ve all got their little secrets, haven’t they?”
Lily casts an uncertain glance towards James, practising with Eliot Entwhistle from the Hufflepuff team. Both boys look a bit resentful about the fact they've been paired up.
“I suppose they do…” she says. “It’s probably best not to get involved, isn’t it.”
“I thought you and James Potter were…” Bethan begins uncertainly.
Lily feels her face heat. “’Course not,” she says briskly. “Just because we’re Head Boy and Girl, doesn’t mean— I haven’t signed any contract, least as far as I know. Now, come on, it’s your turn.”
Lily turns in her seat so her back is to James, and resolves never to let the whatever it is distract her again.
After Quidditch practice, he’s waiting for her. Lily spots him at once. He’s early this time, for a change, and looks no messier than he usually does.
“Alright?” he says.
She nods. “How was practise?”
“Thrilling. Riveting, even. I’m sure you’ll be wanting to hear all about it.”
His eyes are teasing. She laughs.
“Oh, alright, I’m not that bad. How’s the new Keeper turning out?”
“Great, actually. I reckon she’s a good fit.”
Lily forces a smile and tries not to think about Philippa Wolseley with her cool hair and makeup, doing cool loop-de-loops and other moves Lily has no name for.
“Well, c’mon,” he says. “These corridors won’t patrol themselves.”
She laughs and starts walking beside him. “As if you plan on doing any patrolling.”
“In that case, these lips won’t snog themselves.” He pulls a face. “Eugh, pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Happily,” Lily says briskly. She lights her wand and raises it above her head; the corridor is empty and silent. They turn a corner.
“Nobody here,” James says. “This patrolling lark is really a productive use of our time, isn’t it?”
“Maybe not,” Lily says. “But what if something does happen?”
“Surely you don’t expect me to give someone detention for sneaking about after hours. I mean, it’d be hypocritical for starters.”
“I usually just tell people to clear off,” says Lily. “But you know— someone could genuinely be in trouble, or something.”
“Well,” James says, looking at her in that way of his. He's all nonchalance, but his voice betrays something deeper, something she recognises. “Since it doesn’t look like anyone’s in need of saving at the moment, we might as well make use of our time.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
She smiles at him for a moment, and then— he moves or she does, she can’t quite tell. She’s sliding her arms around his neck, her fingers into his hair. There’s a breath in which they look at each other; Lily can see something in his hazel eyes like hunger, hunger for her, hunger that makes her shiver in a way that is dizzyingly, tantalisingly unknown to her. She presses her lips to his and feels him respond, feels his arm tighten around her waist, feels a little sigh escape from her against her will as she presses herself to him.
They stumble back, against a tapestry; Lily allows herself to run her hands down, across his shoulders, his back. She allows herself to feel him, feel the way his body responds to hers, the way they seem to just fit, allows herself to give into the millions of little things like molecules racing across her skin to his.
“God,” she says, in a moment she’s stopped to catch her breath. “That’s just—”
She can’t describe it, so she stops. She leans back against the tapestry. He runs a hand, lightly, down the side of her body. She shivers, arches her spine as if possessed, as if pulled by a string.
“What is it?” he says.
She shakes her head. She grasps his hand, his arm. She works her way up and rakes her fingers down his stomach. She derives a heady rush from the way he moans at her touch.
“Two can play at that game,” she hears herself whisper.
He grabs her, pushes her back, kisses her again. She allows herself to be lost in it.
It never seems quite enough, whatever it is that they have. It never seems quite enough, when Lily sneaks back into her dormitory trying not to make a sound. It never seems quite enough when she lays in bed staring up at the canopy, feeling an empty, ringing ache for something she can’t describe.
“Go on, Evans,” he says. “It’s tradition.”
Lily looks up from her notes on the Blood-replenishing Potion to see James dangling a clump of mistletoe in the air between them. She can’t help but laugh.
“It’s not Christmas, is it,” she says, reaching for it half-heartedly. He, taller and longer of limb, simply raises it out of her reach.
“Every day’s Christmas with you around, Evans.” He’s teasing; his eyes glitter with mirth.
“God,” Lily says, pulling a face. “That’s revolting. Look, we’re supposed to be concentrating…” She catches his eye and sighs; the steam drains from her argument along with the air from her lungs.
“Alright,” he says. He sets the mistletoe down, very deliberately, on the table before her. He folds his arms. “So concentrate.”
Lily meets his gaze. For a long moment, they’re engaged a silent stand-off. Just looking at each other. Drinking each other in, or whatever it is that they're doing. Lily allows herself, for that moment, to bask in his desire for her; she feels her breath catch with the slightest movement of his mouth or lift of his eyebrow. She finds herself wanting, desperately, the whatever it is that she wants.
“Yeah,” James says at last, breaking away. “Thought so. So, how much bloodwort are we s’posed to use?”
Lily lets out a breath. “God,” she says. “You complete—”
But she has no word for him, not just then. He bends over her notes with a bit of a grin. So she kicks out without any real force, feeling her foot make contact with his leg.
“You know, violence is never the answer,” James says.
“Quite right, m’boy!”
Slughorn’s booming voice from behind almost causes Lily to fall from her stool.
“Oh— Professor,” Lily says, flustered. “Erm… sorry, I’m just double-checking the brewing instructions before I start adding the tincture of ergot—”
“Hmm, yes well— I daresay caution is a virtue,” Slughorn says, bobbing around them. “But time, on the other hand, is galleons, and you’ve precious few to waste, m’dear! Best get cracking, eh?”
“Yes,” Lily says abashedly. “You’re right, professor. Sorry.”
He bounces away towards Sirius and Mary, and Lily takes her bloodwort from the fire hastily— the leaves are a bit droopier than she’d have liked.
“Great,” she says to James. “Thanks to you my bloodwort’s gone all soggy.”
“Ooh, well, pardon me.”
“I don’t think I will, thanks.”
“The Head Girl can’t be seen walking around with soggy bloodwort, can she? Think of the scandal.”
“Yeah?” Lily hisses. “Well, the Head Boy can’t be seen distracting the Head Girl from— you’re doing that wrong. Give it to me.”
James pushes his still-dry bloodwort towards her.
“Look, it’s like this,” Lily says, showing him how to strip the leaves properly. “There. Now leave me alone. I’ve got to add my ergot.”
He laughs softly and turns back to his own cauldron. Lily carefully adds ten drops of tincture of ergot, willing herself not to let her mind wander away from her potion and towards the boy next to her. Then she stirs her soggy bloodwort, lets it rest, tips it from the sieve into the cauldron, and turns her attention to the mistletoe.
Her hand grazes the leaves and she looks up.
“James,” she says.
“Hang on. I’m at a crucial juncture— wouldn’t want my bloodwort to go all soggy.”
“Shut up,” Lily says, unable to resist a grin. With a furtive look around, she places a hand on his leg and feels him tense beautifully in response, sending a thrill right through her— she allows herself to feel it. She allows herself, for a moment, to revel in it.
“Well,” he says. “That’s not fair.”
“Who said anything about fair?”
He turns slowly to face her. “What is it?” he says.
“Oh, nothing,” she says airily. She turns away from him and starts picking small white berries from the mistletoe and letting them fall into the mortar. One by one, rolling around the concave stone until they come to rest in the middle.
“Yeah, right,” James says. “I’m onto you, Evans. You just don’t want my potion to be better than yours.”
Lily laughs, now pounding her berries into a pulp with the pestle. “Fat chance of that.”
“Just so you know, all the dirty tricks in the world won’t save you. There’s some things you just can’t come back from, and soggy bloodwort’s one of them.”
Lily can’t help but snort with laughter, pounding her mistletoe with a little too much force— she feels a bit of berry splatter onto her chin.
“Here,” says James, reaching out and wiping it away with his thumb. But his hand lingers there a second too long; Lily turns to him and her grin fades slightly, his does too, and she feels it crackle between them all over again.
“How do you do that?” she says quietly, now grinding her berries into a finer paste. Round and round and round.
“You’re the one who’s doing it,” he says, just as quietly.
There’s silence for a moment. A silence that acknowledges something, whatever it is that it may be.
Then he speaks. “So, er— tapestry room after class?”
“I can’t,” Lily says. “I’ve said I’d help Marlene…”
“Alright, I’ll just pine for you from afar, then, shall I?”
“You’ll survive,” Lily says briskly. “Besides, you’re the one skipping patrol tonight so you can do whatever it is you do on full moons.”
“I know,” James says, frowning. “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t appear more forthcoming than that; she scrapes the paste into an empty bowl and starts adding water slowly, before stirring it into the right consistency. Then that, too, goes into the cauldron. She relights the flame underneath with her wand.
Now, she knows, comes the trickiest step. Adding the dragon blood. Sticking her tongue out in concentration, Lily starts carefully pouring the dark, glutinous blood into the cauldron, stirring as she goes. Finally, she’s satisfied— it’s not her best work, but under the circumstances who can blame her?
Lily turns the heat down as far as it will go. The potion calms to a simmer. She exhales with some relief.
“Y’know, it’s dead sexy how you pour that blood.”
Lily snorts. “Oh, shut up. I’d like to see you do it better.”
His response is lightning-quick. “Yeah, I bet you would.”
She laughs again. “Do you practise these things in the mirror?”
“Nah,” he says. “It’s all off the cuff.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It is right.”
“I’ll just bet.”
“And you always bet on the winning broomstick,” James says. “See? Off the cuff.”
“I’ll cuff you in a second if you don’t shut up.”
“That a promise?”
“God, just work on your potion, will you?”
He grins, shrugs, turns around. And Lily, now with nothing to do but wait, wishes he hadn’t.
So she instead drags her eyes around the classroom. Severus is at the front talking to Professor Slughorn. As she looks at him, Lily feels a wave of guilt that she can’t quite control. It gets the better of her. She stands, piles her dirty equipment in her arms. Leaving James to his devices, she heads to the washbasins along the far wall of the classroom. She begins to rinse the first beaker; dark, thick blood spirals down and mingles with the water. She watches it go.
By the time she returns to her seat, James has lowered his fire.
“How’d you do, then?”
“Oh, smashed it.”
She cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of his cauldron and he moves in front of her to block her view.
“Come on, Evans— don’t you trust me?”
“I—” she begins to answer, but just then Slughorn gets to his feet and announces that they should begin finishing up.
Lily bottles and corks a sample of her now-brilliantly crimson potion to take it up to him. On the way, she passes Severus. She avoids his imploring gaze.
“Hmm,” Slughorn says critically, holding her flask up to the light. “Looks like it could’ve done with a bit more stewing at the end there. These different components, you know, they need time to settle. Get used to each other, as it were… otherwise they tend to get a bit overexcited.”
“Right,” Lily mutters. “Sorry, Professor. Yeah, I shouldn’t’ve spent so much time dawdling.”
“Well, no matter, m’dear,” Slughorn says breezily, waving a hand. “For a first attempt it’s not bad, not bad at all. Perhaps next time you ought to pair up with a classmate who isn’t quite such a chatterbox, eh?”
“Right,” Lily says, feeling herself go the exact colour of her potion. “You’re probably right, sir.”
He gives her a fond little smile and turns his attentions to the next student. Face still burning, Lily returns to her table and starts packing up her potions kit, vanishing the contents of her cauldron.
“Well?” James says, holding out his sample for her inspection. “What d’you reckon?”
The colour is not quite as deep a shade as Lily’s had been— but close enough.
“It’s not bad,” Lily says offhandedly. “But not as good as mine.”
“Yeah, yeah,” says James. When he rises to take his sample to Slughorn, he brushes a hand against her leg— causing Lily to knock over her mortar and pestle.
“Two can play at that game,” he says to her, then he goes.
Lily stares after him for a second; then snaps into action, packing away the rest of her kit as quickly as possible. She leaves the classroom faster than anyone.
He’s gone outside for a smoke, and despite the warmth and companionship of their booth in the Three Broomsticks, Lily is all too conscious of his absence. More conscious, in fact, than she’d like to be.
“Going toilets,” she mumbles to Mary, and slides from the booth. Instead, she winds her way through the crowd and heads for the door.
The brisk autumn air hits her right in her lungs; she blinks for a moment, then looks round. He’s easy enough to spot, leaning against the low stone wall.
“Hi,” she says.
He offers her one of his Woodbines.
“Nah, thanks,” Lily says. “I’ve got my own.”
He shrugs and pops one into his mouth, she scrabbles in her bag for her own pack of Rothmans. Finally her fingers close around it.
“This Order stuff,” he says. A spiral of smoke curls around his words. “It’s serious, isn’t it.”
Lily snorts, lighting her cigarette with the tip of her wand. “That your professional analysis?”
“Shut up,” he says, with a slight grin. “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah,” Lily agrees softly. “I do.”
“I mean, it’s something we’ve got to take seriously,” he says. “It’s not, you know, just a lark. It’s not some kid’s game. It’s life or death.”
“Christ,” Lily says. “Try being a little less cheery, would you?”
“Sorry. I’ve just been thinking about it. You know, what we saw last year— at Gringotts… Sigdrífa…” Lily feels her heart clench at his words. “That was only the start, wasn’t it? From now on, every day’s going to be like that. And that’s what we’re signing on for.”
Lily exhales a stream of smoke and looks at him. “And you’re willing to do that?”
“’Course I am. There’s no choice, is there?”
“There’s always a choice.”
“What, run and hide while those maniacs run around murdering anyone they don’t like? You call that a choice?”
She shrugs. “It’s still a choice.”
“Not one I’ll ever choose,” he says.
“Good then,” she says. “Nor me.”
He looks out over the village. She watches his thoughtful, grave profile. She allows herself to find him beautiful.
“Anyway,” he says at last, a slight catch of forced confidence in his voice. “We ought to get back to the others, eh? Or who knows what they’ll start thinking.”
“Right,” Lily says, tossing her cigarette and stamping it out. “Come on, then.”
“Although—” he says casually. “If you wanted to fool around a bit I know some great alleyways. Some with only mildly smelly rubbish.”
She catches his eye and grins. “Maybe later.”
“Alright,” he says. And moves closer. He’s good at that, she thinks, at moving closer. And just the right amount. He’s good at just leaving the lightest touch on her waist, the sort of touch that gets her moving closer too, unconsciously, seeking more despite herself. He’s good at looking at her too, looking at her in a way that something inside her wants despite not having a name for it.
His gaze holds many things; warmth, promise, worry, desire.
Lily allows herself to feel it too, those things he feels for her. She allows herself, briefly, to want them.
She follows him inside, back into the warmth of the pub. Back towards their friends, and the chatter, the buzz, the world that exists beyond whatever it is that they have.
And all the while, Lily lets herself look at him. She considers him, she weighs him, and all that he represents, in her mind. She allows herself to want the whatever it is that she wants.