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One.
After dinner, Jamie likes to sneak out behind Greenhouse Five with the Map and a pack of Hungary's Finest Firebreathers. She tells Sirius she needs to draft Quidditch plays, but she doesn't know why she bothers. By now even Petra's figured out who left the poem on Lily's nightstand. Sooner or later her friends are bound to realize Jamie isn't studying the Ravenclaw team's evening habits (as if she needed to).
And so what if she does make a habit of watching the dot labeled "Lily Evans" walk the edge of the school grounds with the dot labeled "Pratik Patil"? They're being very cagey about their relationship. Anyone would be curious. Jamie can't be the only person who hastily stubs out her cigarettes and strains her ears to listen when those two come near--although maybe, she thinks, she is the only one who checks the greenhouse glass to make sure her hair is artfully tousled for Lily's benefit.
"That's why you should be like me and only hang out with boys," the redhead is saying, green eyes bright. "Girls are too much drama."
Ouch, Jamie thinks, but also, Not me. She opens her mouth to say as much. Then Patil reaches for Lily's hand.
"Except for you," he says.
Lily blushes prettily. "Except for me," she agrees. Together they walk past Jamie's greenhouse without ever noticing she's there.
Ouch, Jamie thinks again. She lights another cigarette.
Two.
Jamie has it all planned out. It's going to be perfect. She'll sneak away to the lake during dinner. She'll clear the ground around Lily's favorite spot. She'll put down a blanket and build up a little wall of snow to shelter them from the wind. She'll conjure a portable fire to keep them warm, set up her wireless radio, maybe transfigure a couple of rocks into cushions so they'll be comfortable. Then the sun will set, Lily will leave the castle, and they'll make out in the snow for hours.
It's a perfect plan--practically infallible. All she has to do is stop snogging the woman of her dreams before midnight so that she can get to Remus on time and everything will be perfect. She checks the Map on her way to dinner, and the coast is clear, and everything is falling into place, and--what is Sirius doing in the dungeons?
She stops dead in her tracks and shoves the Map at Remus. "What's it doing?" she demands.
"What?"
"Why's Sirius with Snape?"
Remus rubs the bridge of her nose with her two-thin fingers, looking pained. "I don't know, Jamie," she says. "I think I'm going to have a stroll. I don't feel well."
"Alright." She turns to Petra, brandishing the Map. "Do you know what she's up to?"
Three.
"I hope we can agree to be professional," Lily says, extending a freckled hand.
"Of course." Suddenly the little gold badge is heavy as a stone.
Four.
The invitation arrives on a Sunday afternoon in early spring. Lily and Jamie are in the prefects' bathroom, dangling their bare feet in rose-scented bathwater and brainstorming new house passwords. Lily refuses all of Jamie's idea point-blank, but Jamie hardly minds. Her suggestion for Ravenclaw's riddle turned the redhead pink all the way down to her toes. Against her better judgement, the lanky dark-haired girl is giddy.
"I'll get it," she says about the tawny owl that taps politely on the window. Her soapy feet slip-slip-slip across the smooth tile floor. The window sticks, then opens with a loud creek. With a soft chirp, the owl relinquishes the letter to Jamie and flutters away.
"It's for you. Looks fancy." Jamie brings Lily her gold-embossed envelope and watches her open it, intent.
"My sister's wedding," Lily explains. She hardly skims the text before setting it aside. "Want to drown me so I don't have to go?"
"Well, if you insist," Jamie teases.
"No, better not," Lily says. "Mum would be disappointed." She kicks her feet, stirring up fresh bubbles in the stagnant water. "I just hate feeling like a freak all the time, you know?"
Jamie doesn't, but she nods, pretending.
"Maybe I should just stop trying. Charm my dress to change colors. Start talking about dragons to everyone who'll listen." Jamie thinks she sees Lily looking at her from the corner of her eye as she says, "Hit on all the brides maids," but maybe it's just wishful thinking. "Generally raise hell, you know?"
Jamie has to focus hard on continuing to breathe.
"Anything I'm leaving out?" Lily asks.
A date! Jamie thinks. Me! Take me! But it's been months since she last asked Lily out. Suddenly she can't remember how. She shrugs helplessly, and after a moment, they are back on the subject of passwords.
Five.
It was the stupidest idea Jamie's ever had in her entire life, and she's not even sure why she suggested it.
Actually, no--she knows exactly why she suggested it. Lily blinked up at her with those sleepy green eyes and said, "I still have studying to do. Can we make this quick?" and every ounce of Jamie's good sense flew out the window.
"Yeah, sure," she said, as though completely unaffected by the fact that this is the last set of late-night rounds they'll ever do together. "We could even split them up, if you want," she said, as though the castle was a perfectly safe place. "You do the basements to the third floor, I'll do floors four through seven and the towers, and we'll meet up back here?" as though sending a Muggleborn to patrol past the Slytherin dormitories wasn't asking for trouble.
And now Jamie's stuck sitting on the ground by the Fat Lady, hoping Lily is just late and not dead or dying some eight floors below her. It's not a good place to be. She takes a deep breath and tries to focus on transfiguring her shoelaces into rattlesnakes and back again.
"Are you sure that's quite safe, dear?" the Fat Lady asks.
Jamie shrugs. "Can't you just ask one of the paintings in the basement if she's okay?"
"I'd like to see you hold a conversation with a bowl of fruit." She huffs. "Why don't you go see for yourself?"
"What if she comes back and I'm gone and she decides to go look for me and--"
"I'll tell her to wait right here," the Fat Lady assures her.
"Oh." Jamie gets to her feet, brushes the dust from the seat of her robes, and double-checks that her shoelaces are safely inanimate. "Right. Be right back." If she takes the tapestry passage, she can make it to the dungeons in ten minutes.
Her shoes slap-slap-slap against the stone corridor as she takes it at a run. The sound so loud that she almost doesn't hear the voice behind her calling her name--almost. She hesitates.
"Oy, Potter!" Jamie whips around, and there is Lily.
"You're okay!"
"Shut up!" Lily replies. Startled, Jamie takes a second inventory, but can't find anything wrong. No blood, no limp, no tears in her clothes--her hair is a little frazzled, but all-in-all she looks fine.
"What?"
"Shut up," Lily repeats. "You're ruining this. Now I have to start again. Turn back around."
Puzzled, Jamie obeys, and once again Lily calls, "Oy, Potter!"
Jamie stands still, waiting.
"Turn around now."
"Okay." Jamie does, though she is starting to wonder if maybe Lily sustained some sort of head injury.
"Go out with me."
Jamie's mouth is dry. "Like to the grounds or--?"
Frustrated, Lily stamps her feet against the flagstones. It takes almost all of Jamie's self-control not to laugh, but the painful thumping of her heart in her stomach helps some. "No," Lily says, "like on a date."
"Oh." Jamie's skin is on fire. For the life of her, she can't remember how to speak.
"You don't have to," Lily adds in a rush. "I was trying to ask you like you used to ask me. It was supposed to be romantic, but it's really no big deal if you don't want to. That's why I waited until we were done with rounds, so you wouldn't feel pressured."
"No."
"No?" Lily takes a half-step back, startled, and Jamie hurries forward.
"No, I mean, I don't feel pressured." She stops three feet in front of Lily, torn between the desire to touch her and the fear that this is some terrible, cruel joke. "I--Yeah. Yes. I want to go on a date. With you."
"Tomorrow?"
"Tonight, if you want."
"Tomorrow."
"Okay," Jamie says, only half disappointed. Then Lily kisses her, and she's not disappointed at all.