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Chapter Text

LILY

No, Lily was sure, that this sight would never render her anything but speechless. She well remembered seeing Hogwarts for the first time, precisely six years ago.

It was literally precisely six years ago. In the Muggle world, Lily had never seen anything operate as precisely as the Hogwarts train leaving 11 o’clock each year on the first of September.

The huge advantage magic had over normal operating systems was, that basically nothing could actually interfere with the train’s journey. Well, the ministry could maybe interfere and make the train stop, and some creatures might have the power as well, but that was highly unlikely on a normal day.

The only creatures Lily knew to have a resembling power were the Dementors at Azkaban and what on earth would they want anywhere near the Hogwarts Express?

No, the Hogwarts Express would roll on steadily for ever. It would leave King’s Cross Station at precisely 11 o’clock on the first of September and would arrive later that day at Hogsmead, always at the same time.

It was good to think that some things never changed.

“What are you thinking about, Lils?” Alice asked. Lily winced at the nickname and looked over to her friend sitting across her with her legs folded over in a way that simply could not be comfortable.

“My first day at Hogwarts.” Lily answered. This was not a lie and it was a lot less complicated than the truth.

“Oh, yes. Hard to believe that that was nearly six years ago!”

“Precisely.”

“Pardon?”

Lily sighed, now she was going to explain the truth after all. “It is precisely six years ago today that we first came to Hogwarts. When we stop in Hogsmead that will be precisely six years ago that we have done that for the first time.”

“I suppose…” Alice said and frowned a little.

“What are you two even talking about?” Helen frowned.

“Nothing.” Lily said quickly. “Do you think we should put our uniforms on already?” she asked.

“Lily.” Helen groaned.

“What?”

“The school year hasn’t even started and you are behaving like the teacher’s pet already.” Helen sighed and winked at Lily. Lily poked her tongue out at her and folded her arms. “If you don’t take care, the head girl is going to report you for being too perfect.”

“Who is Head Girl?” Alice asked. “I sure hope that they didn’t pick Becky, pretentious brat.”

“Becky is nice.” Helen defended her half-heartedly.

“Yes, and Potter is good-looking.” Lily murmured sarcastically.

“Prongs!” some suddenly shouted. Sirius Black was standing in the door frame starring at Lily. “You would not believe what Evans just said!”

Lily groaned and pushed Sirius out of their cabin and slammed the door shut. “Get lost, Black.” She said and turned around. “It’s not Becky.” She said.

“How do you know?” Helen asked. Alice scrutinized her and suddenly started screaming.

Helen joined but her screaming was a lot more terrified and a lot less joyous. “Why are we screaming?” Helen panted after a while and leaned back exhaustedly.

“Lily is Head Girl!” Alice shouted and flung herself at Lily.

“Are you really?” Helen asked and sat up again. Lily shook Alice off and shrugged. “Did you get the damn badge or not?” Helen inquired and squinted.

Lily nodded slowly. “I did.”

“Congratulations!” Helen shrieked and threw herself around Lily’s neck.

“Can I join?” Even though Lily was standing with her back to the door she knew who was speaking, that wasn’t really a challenge, everyone would know the voice of their nemesis once they spent six years trying to shake them off.

“No, Potter.” Lily said coolly and took Helen’s arms off.

“Padfoot said you wanted to tell me something.” Lily noted annoyed that James was still standing in the doorway.

“Tell Black to shut his mouth.”

“That’s not very kind Lily.”

“Who told you, you could call me Lily?” Lily asked and turned around, glaring at James.

“I thought as we were sharing duties now…” James said slowly.

“Get lost, Potter.” Lily said, a little bothered that she didn’t understand James and even more so seeing, that he didn’t respond with any of his usual lines.

James frowned, shrugged and walked away. Admitting his defeat was not like James at all. Lily wondered if she should be concerned.

“What was he on about?” Lily asked and fell down next to Alice who shrugged sympathetically.

“Now that you work with Remus, James might be a bit less of a bugger.” Helen suggested carefully.

“Let’s hope so.”        

“Oh, Remus is head boy, is he?” Alice asked excitedly. “He is a kind boy, isn’t he?”

“What about Frank?” Helen asked with a smirk. Alice threw her jacket into Helen’s face and didn’t answer.

Helen giggled and got up to draw the curtains so that they could change into their uniforms.

Lily dressed with care and smoothed her blouse down before pinning the badge on saying she was head girl. Her hands trembled a little and her stomach was doing that rollercoaster thing.

She was used to that sensation. It has been a steady companion over the last six journeys to Hogwarts after all, the fact that she was head girl only intensified it a little bit.

They were all dressed and had just finished packing their things into the respective bags when Alice gently nudged Lily and whispered: “I am really proud and happy for you, I really am, but promise me to never forget us.”

“And how exactly should I achieve that?” Lily asked with a grin.

“Ah, I don’t know.” Alice sighed apologetically. “It’s only with the change of dorms and stuff.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, the grin fading a little.

“Oh, you know, the head girl and boy apartment. Not that I am not most eager to inspect it, but it will be a negative change for me and Helen at least.”

“Head girl and boy apartment?” Lily asked, not smiling anymore.

“Yes!” Helen agreed. “Now you don’t only have your own bathroom, you will also have your own bedroom.” She said, referring to the prefect bathroom.

“But why?” Lily whispered.

“Only you would ask that and not jubilantly move into it.” Helen said and patted Lily’s arm.

“Because you will have duties and work to do where us peasants would only interfere.” Alice explained kindly.

Lily smiled weakly. This was not good.

“Promise you’ll visit me.” Lily said.

“I had hoped you would say that!” Alice said and threw her arm around Lily’s shoulder. “Of course, we will. But only if you return our visits.”

“I am sure the apartment isn’t that great.” Lily considered. “I have to share it with a boy after all.”

“You can consider yourself lucky that that boy is Remus.” Helen said knowingly and started laughing.

Lily joined in tentatively, she was not too sure the whole apartment thing would work out in her favour, she had after all never told anyone that she had trouble sleeping alone.

This year was going to be fun. Maybe Professor Slughorn could provide her with a sleeping potion.

Lily supressed a sigh and prayed that Remus didn’t snore.

Lily followed Helen and Alice into the Great Hall. It was always weird to see your place moved down the table, whenever you came back in September.

Lily actually felt her stomach dropping when she realised that they would be sitting at the very end of the table. This was, after all, their very last year.

Lily sat down and bravely swallowed back a few tears. She wasn’t sure why she was so emotional.

Probably because everything was a little too much. Not only was this her last year, she also had to sleep alone for the first time. The fact that she could not possibly share this ridiculous circumstance as the reason for her feeling so bad with anyone made Lily feel uncomfortably helpless.

“You okay?” Alice asked kindly.

“Yeah.” Lily said and smiled.

“Exciting, isn’t it?” Alice asked and kneaded her fingers.

Lily frowned and looked at Alice, who was not looking at her. It seemed she was just staring into the distance, when Lily saw Frank and knew, that Alice was looking at him.

“Yes, very.” Lily agreed and suggestively raised her eyebrows at Helen who pretended to vomit. Lily shot her a stern glance and quickly smiled when Alice turned around again.

“I am really looking forward to Transfiguration.” Alice said matter-of-factly.

“How do you know that Frank will be there too?” Helen asked truly astonished.

Lily kicked her under the table. Before either of them could say anything, the Marauders made a grant entrance.

Lily sighed and instantly forgot what they had been talking about.

Tomorrow it would be six years ago, precisely, that she had discovered her heartfelt dislike of James Potter. The way he walked around the school as if he was so immensely popular.

Okay, he was. But the way his ridiculous toffee brown hair was never in the least tidy, or the way his glasses never sat properly on his nose, or the way he smirked as if he knew he was incredibly good looking.

No, wait.

As if he thought he was incredibly good looking.

Lily blushed at her thoughts and quickly bent her head.

Looking at her empty plate until she was sure that Potter and his friends had sat down. She glanced over to them for the fraction of a second and saw Remus smiling apologetically at her.

Lily returned the smile confused and quickly looked away again, he could not possibly know what she had just thought, could he?  

Dumbledore started his speech and Lily was as usual drawn into it merely because of the sound of his voice. This prevented any further thoughts which Lily was very thankful for.

In addition to the power of Dumbledore’s voice Lily also paid close attention simply because this was her last year and because she was now a head girl and therefore had to be as well informed about all the school rules as possible.

To be fair, there was probably no one around that knew the rules better than Lily, even before listening closely to Dumbledore’s speech.

Lily only momentarily got distracted when she glanced over to Potter’s stupid gang (she always tried to remember not to do them the pleasure of calling them by their ‘name’).

At the first glance Remus appeared to be the only one listening but as Lily’s gaze lingered for a while, she saw that Potter also seemed to pay attention. Seeing the head of the Ma… of the stupid gang (!) pay attention to what Dumbledore was saying unsettled Lily for a couple of seconds but she managed to tear her gaze away and concentrate on the speech again.

Once Dumbledore was done, food appeared on the table and everyone started digging in. Lily had missed the food, maybe not as much as she had missed Hogwarts itself, but she did miss the food as well, nothing Muggles would ‘conjure’ could stand a chance against the wonders the house elves presented them with daily.

Lily sighed and cut herself a piece of cake.

“Are you quite alright?” Alice asked with a full mouth.

“I love Hogwarts.”

“No wonder you’re head girl, you patriotic lunatic.” Alice stared at Lily.

“Patriotic comes from the Latin word: ‘patria’ – native country, that’s not the right adjective for my feelings concerning Hogwarts.” Lily said gently.

“Patriotic lunatic and know-it-all.” Alice insisted but smiled fondly, Lily returned the smile, knowing that Alice was not actually being rude.

“I’m gonna miss your lectures.” Helen said and sounded genuinely sad.

Lily looked at her surprised.

“I know we’re still going to see each other but not being able to listen to your ‘fact of the day’ will be very sad.”

“Hang on a minute.” Lily said dumbfounded. “How many times have you told me to shut up while I was trying to tell you something genuinely interesting?”

“Oh, right.” Helen said, the sad note in her voice entirely gone.

Lily sighed and shook her head.

“I think you are as wound up as me because this is our last year.” Lily observed.

“Yeah, sure.” Helen huffed. Lily raised her eyebrows. “Okay, maybe.” Lily patted Helen’s arm.

“We’ll be fine.” Lily said.

“Of course, we are!” Alice said cheerfully and bit into her muffin. “Especially with such a great head duo.”

“You called?”

Lily glared at Potter who had appeared out of nowhere. “Sod off, Potter.”

JAMES

“Why are you back already?” Sirius asked James as he sat down.

“Lily told me to leave.” James explained.

“So why are you back already?” Sirius asked unimpressed.

“I couldn’t just stay!”

“You did for the past six years.” Sirius said and frowned. “Are you alright, Prongs?”

“Never better.” James said sarcastically.

“Woah, what’s wrong?” Sirius asked and sat down next to James with a shocked expression. “Isn’t your life ideal at the moment?”

“In what way is my life ideal?” James asked confused.

“I mean you only get to work closely with the girl of your dreams.” Sirius said and stared at him.

“Padfoot.” James said.

“What?”

“I doubt that Lily will be too excited. Well actually, I doubt that Lily knows.”

“What?” Sirius asked again and looked around for help. “Moony. Help me.” He ordered.

James sighed and looked at Remus expectantly.

“I think what Prongs is trying to say is that Lily doesn’t know yet and hardly suspects that Prongs is Head Boy.” Remus muttered, barely even lifting his gaze from his book.

“Thanks, Moony.” James winced.

“No offence.” Remus said quickly.

James nodded forgivingly and looked at Sirius again.

“Who would she think is head boy?” Sirius asked.

“Moony maybe?” James asked.

“Dumbledore can’t make a werewolf be head boy.” Sirius frowned.

Remus’ eyes flew over to the door, but no one appeared to be in the corridor. Thank god for that, James’ ‘Obliviate’ spell wasn’t any good and neither was Remus’, it would be best not even to talk about Sirius, let alone Peter.

“Yes, we know that.” James said.

“Why are you talking like I don’t understand anything?” Sirius asked.

“Because you don’t!” James said despairingly. “Moony?”

Remus sighed and finally put is book away. “Padfoot.” He said and looked at Sirius. “No one knows why I am called Moony, except for you lot, Dumbledore and a few other teachers, I presume. Dumbledore can’t make me head boy because of various reasons, which are by the way useless looking at all the merits of having Prongs as a head boy.” Remus said and smiled crookedly at James, who rolled his eyes but actually blushed at Remus’ compliments.

“Now, when no one knows that I am out of question for head boy then Lily doesn’t think it could be someone other than me. She probably hasn’t thought about Prongs as head boy, not even as a joke.”

James sighed at Remus’ very true words, what you luckily couldn’t hear because of Sirius sudden exclamation.

“Now I get it!” Sirius called and sympathetically hit James’ shoulder. “Sorry about that Prongs.”

“Now you get what? Why is Padfoot sorry?” Peter asked. It appeared that he had just woken up.

Sirius rolled his eyes at James and gestured for Remus to explain. Remus kindly explained what was going on while James and Sirius were already changing into their uniforms.

Sirius snatched the head boy badge out of James hands, bowed grandly and said: “May I have the honour?”

James sighed as an answer and allowed Sirius to pin the badge onto his chest.

“Thank you.” James sighed again.

Sirius threw himself into another ridiculous bow and exclaimed: “You are welcome. Accept the congratulations from your humble servant.”

James pushed Sirius over and slipped into his shoes, trying his best to ignore any further comments from Sirius.

The train eventually came to a stop. Peter was as usual not prepared and fell face first into one of the benches.

“Wormtail, you could start to get used to the train stopping.” Sirius complained but friendly pulled Peter up again.

“Thanks. Always very sudden…” Peter mumbled and grabbed his bags.

“Okay, let’s get going. Our last year at Hogwarts.” Remus said and opened the door of their cabin. “Let’s see who Dumbledore has put us up with.”

“What do you mean?” Sirius asked and followed Remus.

“Now that Prongs is no longer with us.”

“I am not dead, you know?” James asked and followed the two, Peter trailed behind him.

“Prongs has his very own apartment now, well, he and Lily do.” Remus explained patiently.

“What do you mean?” Sirius asked and stopped abruptly, so that James promptly walked into him, and Peter into James.

“The head boy and head girl apartment.” Remus said, he had simply continued walking.

Sirius quickly caught up with him again and tugged his sleeve. “You’re joking, right?” he asked anxiously.

Remus shook his head. Sirius wailed and spun around to James.

“Hey, Padfoot.” James said and smiled kindly.

“Can’t you just decline? I don’t want anyone else in our dorm! Please tell Dumbledore you changed your mind.”

“I never had a mind to change, Padfoot. Dumbledore assigned me this task and I will complete it.”

“You sound like you’re the chosen one.” Sirius said contemptuously.

“Sorry, Pads, there is nothing I can do.” James said and ruffled Sirius’ hair.

“But Prooongs.” Sirius wailed, sounding properly like a dog.

“I promise we’ll have a lot of sleepovers, either at my or at your place.” James said comfortingly.

“You won’t forget me?” Sirius asked.

“Could I ever?” James smiled, Sirius returned the smile brightly and ran ahead to poke Remus’ waist.

James and Sirius were like brothers. They have always been, ever since meeting in the Hogwarts Express, about, no, exactly (!) six years ago.

Even if not together they somehow always knew how the other was doing.

James shook himself, he sounded far too cheesy for his own taste, especially considering that he was talking about Sirius.

James loaded his things onto the horse-less carriages and helped Peter who was visibly struggling.

He jumped up and sat down next to Sirius who was rapidly talking with, or rather to Remus. James gestured to Remus to know what they were talking about.

Remus mimicked eating something, James frowned so Remus said: “The order of the food, he wants to eat.”

“Do you think they’ll have pumpkin pies?” Sirius asked James.

“I am sure they do, Padfoot.” James laughed.

“Good. It wouldn’t be Hogwarts without pumpkin pies.” James didn’t question Sirius and simply enjoyed the trip from Hogsmead to Hogwarts, happy to know that there were tons of food waiting for him in the Great Hall.

When they came walking into the Great Hall Lily and her friends Helen and Alice were already sitting at the Gryffindor table. James looked at Lily but realised how little she would appreciate being stared at and quickly looked away again. Lily hadn’t even noticed that he had come into the room, well, hall really.

James settled next to Remus and patiently waited for Dumbledore to start and stop speaking. In a way just to prove that he was worthy of the post, James paid attention to Dumbledore’s words for more than the first two sentences.

Not even when he had been ecstatic on the first day at Hogwarts had Dumbledore’s words had the power to make him listen. Maybe it was just his brain as usual not paying attention whenever someone was explaining rules of some sort.

Remus nudged him once and James looked at him confused. Remus pointed at Lily, James followed the direction but only saw Lily paying attention, he frowned at Remus and continued listening himself. When the speech was over and the food appeared on the table Remus quietly told James: “Lily looked at you.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“She did.”

“What is it?” Sirius asked.

“Lily looked at Prongs.” Remus explained.

“No way!”

“Thanks, Padfoot.” James said the tiniest bit annoyed.

“Don’t get me wrong.” James raised his eyebrows and Sirius quickly looked away. “Did she really?” he asked Remus.

“Yep.”

“Why do you pretend like that’s so big of a deal?” James asked and Sirius dropped his fork onto the floor.

“Hello?” Sirius started at him. “Lily voluntarily looking at you hasn’t happened in ages!” James calmly looked at him, not changing his expression. “Oh, I am not making it any better, am I?”

James smiled and shook his head.

“All I’m saying is, that maybe Moony was wrong and she will approve of you as head boy.”

“Do you really think so?” James asked excitedly.

“Sounds like it to me!” Sirius said eagerly.

Remus wanted to say something, but Sirius quickly covered his mouth with his hand. “Go on, talk to her!”

James stood up, even though he clearly heard Remus mumble through Sirius’ hand: “That’s not a good idea.” 

James walked the few feet over to Lily and her friends and arrived just in time to hear Alice say: “Especially with such a great head duo.”

“You called?” James asked, thankful for that brilliant segue into their conversation.

“Sod off, Potter.” Lily said and glared at him.

“I can’t really, seeing you were talking about me.” James said, somehow Sirius’ words had restored the faith he had in himself.

Lily simply raised her eyebrows at him and scrutinized him.

Her brow furrowed when she saw the badge. She looked at him proudly and said (what he naively hoped to be some sort of congratulation): “I think Remus would appreciate it if you handed him back what’s his. Girls, we’re leaving.”

“Lily! I haven’t even tried the pudding!” Alice groaned, but Lily mercilessly pulled her away.

James was left dumbfounded.

Lily apparently thought that he had only stolen the badge to, to what? – impress her. James laughed darkly, amazing to see how well the impressing thing worked.

“Prongs?” Sirius called and James saw in his face that it hadn’t been the first time he had called him.

“Yeah?”

“Fancy carrying my trunk to the dorm?”

“Nice try.” James said and followed Sirius out of the hall and to the Gryffindor common room. He stayed until they had unpacked everything, stupidly pushing Sirius’ bag back and forth with his foot.

“What are you still doing here?” Sirius asked carefully when he threw himself onto his bed. “Are you not eager to inspect your new kingdom?”

“Not really.”

“What did Lily say?” Remus asked.

“She thought I had stolen the badge from you, other than that she didn’t say much.”

“Aww, tough luck, Prongs.” Sirius said and started roaring with laughter. Remus threw a pillow into his face which earned him a thankful glance from James.

“What can I do now?” James asked and started fiddling with the curtains.

“Very little.” Remus said sympathetically. “You just have to go there and ease her into reality.”

James winced and looked at Sirius for a better alternative. Sirius only shrugged and threw the pillow back at Remus.

“Can you come with me for moral support?” James asked.

“That’s something you have to do alone.” Remus said.

“Thanks, mum.” Now, the pillow landed in James’ face.

“I think I’m off then.” James said, Remus and Sirius nodding, not saying anything – Peter was eating something, not paying attention to what they were saying.

“See you tomorrow at breakfast.” Again, they were only nodding.

“You are horrible, you know that?” Nodding.

“Sod off, loser.” Sirius called when James opened the door.

James shut it quickly when he was outside, and Sirius called: “I love you Prongs!”

Remus and Sirius started laughing loudly and James left the Gryffindor common room as quickly as humanly possible.

He walked to the head apartment, bubbling with excitement.

Maybe if Lily saw him now, she would believe him.

Who was he kidding, he would be lucky not to end up in the hospital wing once they were through this conversation.

James took a deep breath and braced himself. He opened the door carefully.

Lily was standing with her back to him, hunched over a table. She straightened her back when she heard the door open.

“There you ar-“, she started and stopped when she turned around.

She was shocked and needed a moment to catch herself again before she said with the iciest tone imaginable: “Don’t you think you are taking this prank a little far, Potter? After all being head boy is not a joke.”

Could Madame Pomfrey attend invisible scars as well?, James thought and scolded himself for being such a drama queen.

Chapter Text

LILY

What did Potter think he was doing? Standing there, kneading his fingers, feigning shyness.

Lily was pretty sure she loathed him in that moment. All this was building up to something and she was pretty sure she was going to get hurt in the end.

“Lil… Evans.” Potter corrected himself quickly.

Lily crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him expectantly. Potter looked at his shoes and ruffled through his hair.

Lily cleared her throat, incredibly irritated. Potter’s head snapped up. He let his arm fall down and sighed, looking slightly annoyed now as well.

“See, Evans: Things is: I am Head Boy, whether you like it or not. Dumbledore made me and I am sorry you feel it’s hard to believe.” Potter said, he sounded more tired than annoyed, really.

“But…”

“Moo… Remus isn’t Head Boy, I am, and you need to accept that, I can’t change anything about it, and I doubt Dumbledore will listen to you, but knock yourself out. I am going to bed now so don’t worry about having to see my face for much longer today.” Potter sounded bitter now, but Lily was buzzing with energy to take much notice of it.

Potter stayed true his word and left the room, walking in long strides, swiftly crossing the room. Lily wrung her hands and groaned despairingly before dropping onto the sofa.

What could Dumbledore have been thinking when he made Potter head boy?

Had she done anything wrong? Was this some sort of punishment?

Surely Dumbledore knew that she couldn’t stand the sight of those soft brown curls.

Was this some sort of joke on his side? Because Lily had to admit that she believed Potter’s story, he was head boy and hadn’t stolen the badge from Remus.

Sitting there alone in the small living room/office she suddenly felt bad for having accused him.

She was nearly making up her mind to apologise in the morning when she remembered that Potter had thus far never apologised for anything that he had done to her and there were far worse things among the pranks he had played her, than accusing someone to have taken something from someone else – to have stolen something, essentially.

Lily groaned again and pushed herself off the sofa. She tentatively walked into her room. Both the living room/office and her bedroom looked really nice, with a slight Gryffindor touch to them but that still didn’t mean that they looked particularly inviting, even less so as she was alone.

Lily carefully sat down on the edge of her bed. This was going to be a very fun night. Very fun.

Lily changed into her pyjamas and lay down, she was tired, mind you, so maybe life would finally be fair.

Two hours later Lily knew that her life wasn’t fair.

Lily had nipped off twice, sleeping lightly for a few seconds before jerking awake with a pounding heart, not knowing where she was.

She knew she would not be able to find sleep once she sat up, so she resolutely stayed where she was, not moving an inch.

While squinting shut her eyes she wondered which circumstances exactly had led to this situation.

With that, she did not mean the circumstances that had made her head girl because those were relatively easy to explain: a student willing to work hard and confirm to rules was not the least likely candidate.

Potter on the other hand was, probably.

No, Lily was not going to think about him. Lily clenched her fists and concentrated on riddling out her problems of sleeping.

It was not like this was the first time she had to sleep in a room all by herself, except that it was.

Lily’s eyes opened in shock. Ever since she was little, she had shared a room with Petunia, due to their small house.

Petunia wasn’t the best roommate you could imagine but she was a roommate and that was to be considered in her favour.

Later, when Lily had been accepted at Hogwarts, she also did not have to spend a single night on her own, there were always at least Alice and Helen around making the tiniest of noise in their sleep to let Lily know that she wasn’t alone.

With Lily realising only now that she had problems sleeping on her own it was rather evident that she hadn’t told anyone else.

If she’d have known earlier, she probably still wouldn’t have told anyone, there would have been no need after all, seeing that there would always be someone around, not speaking was a case of sparing some humiliation.

Lily kept on thinking about this for the rest of the night.

She could have known that she would never be able to sleep even if she kept on lying down. With no living thing close by in a completely new room, it was a wonder that she didn’t freak out completely.

Well, actually she did freak out.

Only when the sun started rising Lily calmed down a little. With being able to see things around her she relaxed and didn’t jump at the tiniest noise.

Lily waited for about an hour before she got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

She made sure not to make any noise when she came back to her room. She listened carefully but there was still no noise coming from Potter’s room.

She rolled her eyes and went back into her room pushing a few things back and forth.

She had already emptied all her bags the day before. Now she could only change minor things and feel restless.

What an amazing start to the first day.

Once doing nothing got too much Lily took a book and started reading. Books would have to be her greatest comfort she soon realised.

Even though she was feeling overall horrible reading a book made her forget that briefly and seek shelter in another person’s story.

The book was so good that Lily nearly forgot to get up to meet Helen and Alice in the Great Hall to have breakfast.

She rushed to them and was happy the moment she saw their smiling faces.

“It doesn’t look like you, sleeping in on the first day.” Helen said.

Lily only laughed weakly in response. Telling them she couldn’t sleep alone wouldn’t do anything.

“Are you excited for your first day?” Alice asked.

“I think I am.” Lily said and smiled.

“I know I am.” Alice said, and Lily saw her looking at Frank across the table.

“You two are weird. Very weird. Totally weird. Did I tell you, you’re weird?” Helen asked and looked worried.

“You are also excited.” Lily said calmly.

“Yeah right. I have to take care not to fall asleep!” Helen answered.

Lily smiled and poured herself a large coffee, maybe this would wake her up.

The first day of school was great. Lily thought so at least.

Helen and Alice weren’t too thrilled which was mainly due to McGonagall giving them homework. Lily didn’t think that was half bad, if she couldn’t sleep that night, screw that, when she wouldn’t sleep that night, she could do her homework then.

“Lily, I know you’re not going to understand but I will tell you something now.” Alice said, Lily looked at her slightly concerned. “I won’t do that homework now and also neither will you.”

Lily tried her best to pretend to be shocked and it must have worked, because Alice added: “I am serious. This is our last first day and I won’t spend it inside doing stupid tasks.”

Lily mumbled something incoherently and let Alice pull her away, happy that this had worked out so well.

“What do you want to do?” Alice asked Helen.

“I don’t know, maybe go to the lake. Some boys might be there…” Helen said as innocently as possible. Alice answered hurriedly but Lily didn’t pay attention. Now that the excitement of the first classes was over, she felt tiredness washing over her.

It wasn’t like she deliberately tuned out of their conversation. It was more like she could not possibly keep up.

They arrived at the lake and sat down in the grass. The sun was still shining, and it was warm. Lily took her jacket off and put it underneath her head. She lay down and closed her eyes.

Helen and Alice were still speaking but Lily soon drifted off into sleep, thinking how ironic it was that she could sleep more easily outside not protected in the least, than she could within the safe walls of Hogwarts.

This seemed to be a personal problem, rather than an evolutionary heritage.

Lily was woken up by a loud buzzing noise and a bang close to her ear. She opened her eyes and screamed.

Potter was sitting on his broomstick flying only a few inches above her. He seemed to have caught a Quaffle before it plunged into her.

“Sorry.” Potter said, and Lily could nearly have believed him if it wasn’t for the smirk on his face.

“Sod off.” Lily said half-heartedly and sat up rubbing her eyes.

“Thanks for that, Padfoot.” Potter called and flew off.

“Cheers!” Sirius shouted.

“What happened?” Lily asked and yawned.

“Sirius threw a Quaffle, and James caught it.” Helen summarised, completely unimpressed.

“Why can’t they just leave me be?” Lily mumbled.

She lay back down again and closed her eyes. Sleep nearly caught back up with her again when something hard dropped onto her stomach. Lily yelped in pain.

“I am so sorry, Evans.” Potter said and snatched the Quaffle off her stomach.

“Why can’t you just let me sl… be?” Lily asked and managed to sound equally tired and furious.

“It wasn’t deliberate.” Potter said quietly, but Lily decided to mistake it for a pathetic excuse.

“Sod off. You should know not to present yourself as such a bad example!” Lily glared at Potter.

“Can’t everyone be as perfect as you.” Potter said and glared at her.

Lily didn’t answer, she simply sank down again hoping that sleep would be as kind as to come back a third time.

With Alice and Helen chatting about something in the background Lily was relieved to notice that sleep did come back.

Hopefully, Potter would not be in the way this time.

It wasn’t Potter who woke her up the next time. It was Alice. She gently shook Lily awake and told her that they had to get back inside to have dinner in the Great Hall.

“Are you alright?” Alice asked when she hooked arms with Lily.

“Why?”

“Because you slept like a stone in the middle of the day, outside with people around.”

Helen helpfully contributed a coughed ‘Potter.’.

“I am fine.” Lily assured Alice, ignoring Helen. “The excitement of the first day totally wore me out.”

Alice was kind enough to believe Lily or at least to drop the topic. Lily did not know how she could possibly deserve such friends, seeing that she wasn’t a good friend to them, not telling the truth.

Dinner passed without anything remarkable happening. Alice was good enough to invite Lily to come back to the common room.

Lily would not have dared to ask and tagging along not saying anything would have felt weird.

“I really don’t know how you can be here when you could easily be in a room with no annoying midgets.” Helen said when a first grader accidentally threw a cushion into her face.

“A head girl needs to be close to all the pupils.” Lily said.

“Oh, so tomorrow, you’ll be in the Slytherin common room, will you?” Helen asked and raised her eyebrows.

“Leave her be.” Alice said, deliberately throwing a cushion into Helen’s face. “You like having her around.”

“Course, I do.” Helen said and smiled. “You know I’m only teasing, right?”

Lily had guessed so but was incredibly relieved to have it confirmed.

“Thanks guys.” Lily said and smiled. “How are things with Frank then?” she asked, she had quite a lot to catch up on, she had slept through the initial discussion after all.

JAMES

James loved being proven wrong.

There was nothing as nice as to think that after a disastrous evening, the first day of school had to be better only to be proven colossally wrong.

Amazing.

The day had started without any incidents. He hadn’t even seen Lily until she came running into the Great Hall, looking a little tired if he wasn’t mistaken.

She didn’t look at him for the entirety of breakfast. James was not stupid enough to expect her to speak to him, but he was slightly offended to not even be looked at.

Still, even after breakfast, the day had every possibility to be better than the evening before.

That only changed once they were done with lessons. Nearly everyone seemed to be outside in the grounds, at the lake, near the woods or in the gardens.

The majority of people was simply lying around talking, maybe reading.

James and Sirius, however, started playing Quidditch. Well, they were playing ‘fetch’, essentially.

Sirius threw the Quaffle, and James tried to catch it. He was a good player, so everything was fine.

The only problem was that Sirius was a wicked person, always trying to make it impossible for James to catch the ball.

“What are you moaning about? You wanted it to be challenging!” Sirius called when James groaned after nearly dropping off his broom after a daring safe.

“Yes, I did, Padfoot.” James admitted reluctantly.

“Good.” Sirius said and threw the ball. James immediately set off again.

The ball was heading over to Lily, who was lying in the sun, her eyes closed, it even looked like she was properly sleeping.

The Quaffle was still flying (James suspected some sort of charm) and began lowering once it was near Lily.

James hissed but managed to catch the Quaffle the second before it would have landed on Lily. Lily opened her eyes, James smiled at her, but she started screaming immediately.

“Sorry.” James said quickly with what he hoped to be an apologetic smile.

“Sod off.” Lily said mildly and sat up.

“Thanks for that, Padfoot.” James shouted and quickly flew away, not leaving himself any possibility to look at Lily.

“Cheers!” Sirius shouted with a very self-satisfied smile.

“You are unbelievable.” James said once he was close enough to Sirius to not have to shout.

“Only helping.”

“Yeah, care to explain how?”

“You just saved Lily.”

“Yeah from a danger that was brought up by you. I am sure she is terribly expressed.” James’ voice was dripping with sarcasm but judging by Sirius non-altering expression, he didn’t catch up on that.

An even better indicator for Sirius not understanding him was the Quaffle immediately flying back to where James had just caught it from.

“You’re dead, Padfoot.” James groaned and flew as quickly as he could. Needless to say, he was too late. The Quaffle landed on Lily and she yelped in pain, making James wince.

“I am so sorry, Evans.” James said and quickly grabbed the Quaffle.

“Why can’t you just let me sl… be?” Lily asked in a way that James could not interpret. Her tone was icy and biting but her eyes were tired and maybe even a little sad.

“It wasn’t deliberate.” James said quietly.

“Sod off.” Lily hissed. “You should know not to present yourself as such a bad example!” Lily glared at James, taking his breath away.

“Can’t everyone be as perfect as you.” James answered and flew away.

If he wouldn’t have been sitting on a broom he would have probably stomped off. He was angry. It wasn’t his fault. It was Sirius’ fault.

Also, Lily had no business preaching to him what he had to do as a head boy.

“Sorry, Prongs.” Sirius had the decency to say.

James waved it off. It wasn’t like Lily hated him more now than she did before. Well, maybe a little but in the grand scheme of things it would hardly make a difference.

“Do you want to continue?” Sirius asked.

“Yes, but not here.” James said and flew off into the opposite direction of Lily.

They continued playing until Remus called them to have dinner.

“Yes, mum!” James and Sirius called back in unison. Remus rolled his eyes and walked away.

“Wait for us!” James shouted and jumped off his broom, realising he would possibly have been quicker if he hadn’t done so.

Dinner was as uneventful as a dinner at a magic school can possibly be: Meaning every now and then a cup exploded or flooded over because of ill-executed charms. None of this was exciting enough to make either of them four stop eating.

James decided to be a gentleman and accompany the other three Marauders to the common room. The act in itself was not what made him be a gentleman by the way. More the result of the act did: in

accompanying them he left Lily some space and time on her own.

James was rather impressed with himself, if he dared to say so and was therefore even more surprised to see Lily sitting on a sofa, chatting to Helen and Alice.

James frowned but concluded that she had also wanted to leave him some space. They needed to work on this.

No, rather, James needed to work Lily’s schedule out so that he would cause her the least inconvenience in the future.

During the evening James always had at least one eye on Lily. More often than not, both of them. Just looking at her admiring from afar what he would possibly never see from up close: Lily smiling, laughing and talking (in a friendly way).

To justify his behaviour James told himself that he was only watching Lily because he needed to either leave a good deal before she did or quite a long time after she did.

When Lily started showing first signs of wanting to leave James got up and briskly said goodbye to Sirius and Remus, Peter was playing cards with some boys from grade four.

“See you tomorrow.” James said and left the room. He hurried to the apartment, into his room and only then allowed himself to take a breath.

He did not know why he hurried. He was not afraid. He probably simply wanted Lily to not have to see him, if that made her happy, he would do it, even if it made him unhappy.

James slept as good as he did in the first night. Still, waking up to an alarm would never be easy or pleasant.

James got dressed and left his room, still a little insecure on his legs. Lily was standing next to the table, her arms crossed.

James sighed: what had he done wrong now?

“I appreciate you hiding away from me.” Lily said, only slightly sarcastic. See, not seeing him made her happy!

“I am not…” James tried to defend his honour.

“But we need to work together as a head team.” Lily interrupted him.

“Yes.” James agreed aware how silly he must look.

“It’s a little late now but how about we meet around three and create a plan for the prefects, for their patrols.”

“But we have homework!” James whined. Lily raised an annoyed eyebrow at him. “No, it’s fine. Sorry.”

“Okay, three o’clock?” Lily asked.

“Yes, it’s a date.” James said and sprinted out of the room before Lily could register what he had said.  “Potter!”

James heard her shout as he jogged into the great hall, ah, now he really felt back at home.

“Good morning.” James said cheerfully as he sat down on the bench.

“What are you smiling about?” Sirius asked a little annoyed but already slightly infected by James’ good humour.

“Evans and I have a date this afternoon.” James said loudly so that as many people as possible heard him.

“Quit saying that if you hold your life dear.” Lily hissed and glared at him, slightly out of breath.

“Oh, come on, Evans.” James said and winked at her.

Lily groaned and turned away, sitting down next to Alice.

“So, is it a date?” Sirius asked.

“Oh, Padfoot.” James sighed sympathetically.

“It’s not.” Remus answered for James.

“Why not?”

“Thank you for still having as much faith as me that Lily will eventually agree to go on a date with me.” James said, genuinely touched. “This afternoon we’re only going to speak through the patrol schedule.”

“Romantic.” Sirius said and winked at James who grinned brightly at him.

“You get me.” James said, Sirius laughed, and Remus groaned.

Not much else happened that morning. After breakfast, they went to their classes. After the first class, they changed rooms to attend their third class and so on.

At lunch, James nearly ran into Lily who was talking to a third grader about some sort of club on Wednesdays. James did not know the girl but judging by the badge on her collar, she was a prefect.

James mumbled an apology and squeezed past Lily.

After lunch, the whole thing repeated itself until they were finally done for the day.

James had not forgotten his appointment with Lily, he was only late because Sirius insisted on throwing the Quaffle.

James rushed to the apartment and desperately tried to catch his breath before walking into the room.

“There you are.” Lily said.

“Sorry. I did not forget. Padf… Sirius kept me.”

“No, sorry. I did not mean to sound … negative.” Lily said.

James was quite surprised to hear something like that coming from Lily that he did not know what to say.

“We can start then.” Lily said. She was sitting on the sofa, her shy glances suddenly made James shy himself.

If she had looked at him or rather stared at him the way she usually did, he would have had no problem in plunging down right next to her, but like this, he decided to sit down civilly a few inches away from her.

“Should we just go through the different grades for the different days?” James asked.

“Good idea.” Lily agreed, James was a little hurt to hear her sound surprised. “The young ones will like to have their duties over with at the beginning of the week.” She added.

“Oh, but this might not work.”

“Why?”

“Because the prefect in year three has a club on Wednesdays, hasn’t she?”

Lily stared at James, not necessarily mean but James could not make anything of it, so he quickly said: “I only thought…”

“No, you’re right.” Lily said. “Yes, you’re right. She does have a club.” She said all this still looking at James with the same expression on her face.

“Should we not do the order then?” James asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we can put the fifth graders on duty for Wednesday because I might schedule Quidditch for Fridays anyways.”

“Wow, you have really thought this through.” Lily muttered. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.”

She quickly said and bent over the sheet on her lap, staring at it, trying to work out what to do.

“Here.” James said gently and took the quill out of her hand, shuffling a little closer and marking the changes he had proposed.

“Thanks.” Lily said and she might have actually smiled at him if Alice and Helen hadn’t come running into the room at that precise moment.

James supressed a sigh and turned to smile at the intruders.

“Hello there.” James said and leaned back.

“We came as you told us.” Helen said and James tried not to listen. “How was he?”

James swallowed down the pain, got up and said: “Best date I had in ages.”

“Potter!” Lily shouted despairingly and angry, but James was too busy getting into his room without letting anyone see how deeply hurt he was that Lily had arranged her friends to meet her, a ridiculously short amount of time after their meeting at started, to, to what? To make sure James didn’t do anything to her?

Who did she think he was?

Chapter Text

LILY

Lily had not dared to hope her plan would work out. It was a risky intervention to try to stay up all night to do homework.

Falling asleep on a table would have been a lot less pleasant than any four-second-sleep she could have experienced in her bed.

Luckily, everything worked out and Lily was only a fraction as tired as one might expect after working for the entirety of the night.

She could not hear a sound coming from James’ room when she left hers. She had not seen him since he left the Gryffindor common room the night before.

Lily knew that James and only been there to taunt her and was therefore even more surprised to not hear anything from him up until to the point where he said goodbye to his friends.

Lily was nearly sure that he didn’t even look at her once. This was all very weird.

Lily was standing at the table, her arms crossed when she suddenly heard noises coming from James’ room. She stood up straight and braced herself. James came reeling into the room, eyes not yet completely open, hair unforgivably untidy and fluffy.

“I appreciate you hiding away from me.” Lily said.

It was the first thing that came into her head seeing James.

Potter.

Since when had she started calling him by his first name?

“I am not…” Potter started once he had digested her words.

“But we need to work together as a head team.” Lily interrupted him. She didn’t really want to hear an explanation anyways.

“Yes.” Potter said, he sounded really tired, and Lily was nearly sorry for him.

“It’s a little late now but how about we meet around three and create a plan for the prefects, for their patrols.” Lily said, happy that she managed to express herself coherently even with Potter’s hair annoying her extremely.

“But we have homework!” Potter whined. Lily raised an annoyed eyebrow at him, forgetting that she was probably the only person that compensated sleeping problems with doing homework.

Before she could have said anything, Potter said: “No, it’s fine. Sorry.”

“Okay, three o’clock?” Lily asked, a little kinder.

“Yes, it’s a date.” Potter said with, what seemed to be, an innocent smile.

Only when the words sunk in Lily realised that the smile had actually been more smug than innocent: “Potter!” she shouted and ran after him.

She wasn’t as annoyed as she probably should have been to find herself in this oh so familiar situation.

Lily arrived in the Great Hall just in time to hear Potter declare (to no one in particular): “Evans and I have a date this afternoon.”

“Quit saying that if you hold your life dear.” Lily said.

She tried to hide the fact that she was panting after this embarrassingly short amount of time she had spend running. Not everyone could be as fit as Potter, she thought bitterly and walked on to join Alice and Helen.

“What did James just say?” Alice asked and Lily did her the favour to ignore the excited glint in her eyes.

“He lied about us having a date this afternoon.” Lily said simply. “We are going to speak through patrolling schedules.”

“Romantic.” Helen muttered under her breath. Lily ignored her as well and wondered what her friends had done to deserve to be treated so favourably.

“Would you mind doing me a favour?” Lily asked, an idea had just come into her mind.

“Sure.” Alice said, hungrily eating pancakes.

“Could you come to the apartment at let’s say: ten past three?”

“Sure.” Alice said again.

“Just when exactly did you say you and James would meet?” Helen asked.

“Three.” Lily answered in an unimpressed way.

 “Lily, that’s cruel!” Alice whispered.

“What’s cruel is him telling everyone that we have a date!” Lily said stubbornly. “Besides, I can’t know what he’ll do.” She added.

The moment she said it, she regretted doing so. Helen, however, was nodding in agreement, so Lily didn’t take anything back. That comment wasn’t fair but as Potter would never know she had said something like that she could as well live with it and not let it ruin her day.

The day was fine. Lily learned a few new bits and pieces in a few lessons and managed to supress any signs of tiredness. She did not yawn once and managed to stay alert in all the classes.

She mainly managed to do so because she forced herself to contribute something at least every ten minutes. That way there was no way she could doze off.

When school was over, Lily made her way back to the apartment.

She hated herself a little for being so nervous about the small meeting. Deep down she knew that Potter would do anything seriously bad – and yet here she was, biting her nails, fiddling with her hair.

Lily laid out the plan on her lap and waited. Once the clock struck three, she forbade herself to look at it. She did not know why, but she had faith that Potter would come.

A few moments passed when the door suddenly sprang open. “There you are.” Lily said immediately.

“Sorry.” Potter said, ever so slightly out of breath. “I did not forget. Padf… Sirius kept me.”

Lily bit down a remark of her being well aware of Sirius being called Padfoot (how couldn’t she, when Potter always called him on top of his voice, whenever they saw each other).

“No, sorry. I did not mean to sound … negative.” Lily said instead. Potter didn’t say anything.

In order to not let the awkward silence endure, Lily said: “We can start then.”

She did not look at Potter. She did not have the courage to smile at him and glaring at him would not be fair, and neither would it be honest.

Potter walked over to the couch, Lily held her breath, but he sat down quite a far way away from her.

This should have made her ecstatic but instead she felt something rather similar to disappointment, she quickly surpassed the feeling and stared onto her notes.

“Should we just go through the different grades for the different days?” Potter asked, abruptly introducing the topic.

“Good idea.” Lily was not scared to admit that she was a little surprised. “The young ones will like to have their duties over with at the beginning of the week.” She added and began scribbling something onto the paper, mainly to look busy.

“Oh, but this might not work.” Potter said suddenly.

“Why?” Lily looked up.

“Because the prefect in year three has a club on Wednesdays, hasn’t she?” Lily stared at James, as surprised as she could be. “I only thought…” Potter added, averting his gaze.

“No, you’re right.” Lily said quickly. “Yes, you’re right. She does have a club.” Potter looked back up, but Lily still couldn’t help practically staring at him in surprise.

“Should we not do the order then?” Potter asked.

“I don’t know.” Lily said slowly. It made her a little uncomfortable to discuss matters seriously with Potter. Why else would her heart be pounding a little quicker?

She was uncomfortable and that made her nervous.

“Maybe we can put the fifth graders on duty for Wednesday because I might schedule Quidditch for Fridays anyways.”

“Wow, you have really thought this through.” Lily muttered, biting her lip as she realised that she had indeed said all of that out loud. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.” She mumbled and concentrated on the paper on her lap. Her mind went blank and she simply didn’t know what to do.  

“Here.” Potter said gently and took the quill out of her hand. He came a little closer and marked a few things. This was unbearable! Couldn’t Potter behave normally?

This fast beating of her heart only added to her uncomfortableness.

“Thanks.” Lily said nevertheless, being a good sport.

Lily was incredibly thankful for Alice who came running into the door and Helen who followed behind her.

“Hello there.” Potter said and leaned back. He was still relatively close to Lily.

“We came as you told us.” Helen said. “How was he?” Lily would have really preferred if Helen hadn’t said that, but Potter didn’t seem to notice.

He simply got up and said: “Best date I had in ages.”

“Potter!” Lily shouted, annoyed but also a tiny bit glad that the ‘old’ or rather familiar Potter was back, a Potter she could dislike easily.

“So, how was he?” Alice asked gently as she fell down next to Lily.

“Not half as bad.” Lily admitted.

“This is amazing!” Helen said, bringing the conversation about Potter to an end, which Lily was thankful for, he might after all be eavesdropping. One never knew. “How can you not spend every last second in here?”

“It’s nice.” Lily agreed, with the anticipation gone she was suddenly very tired.

“Nice?” Helen asked and fell down next to Alice. “This is beyond amazing!”

“You can have a better look another time.” Lily said and added quietly: “When we’re alone.” Helen sighed but nodded.

“What do you want to do now then?” Alice asked. “Please don’t say homework!”

“No.” Lily said and smiled. She was happy that she would not have to confess already having done hers in the night before.

And she was happy that her plans would not have to be in tatters due to Alice reluctance to do her homework. She would not have to lie nor would she have to stupidly convince Alice of doing something.

“I would like to go to the common room.” Lily said after a while. “You know, with the good weather, all the small children will be outside, and we can have it for ourselves.”

Helen and Alice got up without doubting anything Lily had just said.

Once they were in the common room Helen and Alice started talking vividly again. They were so absorbed that they didn’t notice that Lily wasn’t paying attention, nor did they notice her actually falling asleep.

Lily woke up about two hours later.

“What do you think, Lily?” Helen was asking her. Lily supressed a yawn and blinked a few times.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” Lily mumbled apologetically.

“Should Alice make the first move, or should she wait until Frank gets a move on?”

“Shh! There are people around!” Alice hissed.

Lily sat up a little straighter and realised that Alice was right. The common room was full again.

“I think Alice should make a few advances. Not too many that Frank can’t feel proud to have conquered you.”

“I’m not a ship.” Alice said saucily but she already seemed to be figuring out a plan.

Lily leaned back again. This had worked out marvellously. No one had noticed she had fallen asleep. No one had noticed she was asleep, and no one had noticed that she had just woken up.

This was brilliant. The plan was fool proof.

Lily was really happy with herself for having figured out something so cunning and brilliant. She got her homework done, she got enough sleep, and no one needed to learn about her embarrassing secret.

She only needed to work her way around a few obligatory meetings, that were included in her head girl duties.

Other than that, she was completely fine.

After dinner Lily spend her evening in the common room until Helen and Alice decided to go to bed.

She pretended to be tired herself and walked to her room only to dress into her pyjamas and start with her homework. The only problem was that she was done relatively early with the little exercises the teachers had provided her with.

After correcting everything she had written and adding a few paragraphs here and there, she decided to read into the oncoming chapters.

Without being aware of it, Lily found that the night had slowly changed into day. She closed the book and stood up, eager to see what this day would bring.

JAMES

James wasn’t feeling too good at the end of the week.

He could not really pinpoint a reason for that.

It was more of a general uneasiness than anything specific. James was sitting on a sofa in the common room looking discreetly at Lily. It wasn’t like she would have noticed if he had done it in a non-discreet way, she was asleep after all.

Lily appeared to always be asleep nowadays. Usually, she had been sitting at a table with either a quill or a book in her hand, learning something.

James had never understood that behaviour, Lily was cleverer than the rest of them anyways, but he could understand her current behaviour even less.

It just didn’t add up. Lily did not need to work to be clever, but she could not have her homework without work. When did she do her homework?

“Oh! Prongs, staring again.” Sirius shouted.

“Shh!” James hissed. “Don’t wake her.”

Sirius smiled apologetically and patted James’ shoulder.

“Why is she always sleeping?” James whispered. Sirius shrugged and turned to look at Remus, he was reading.

“Can’t help you, sorry mate.” Sirius said and that was all James would hear from him about the matter.

James sighed again and frowned. Were the head girl duties so bad that they wore Lily out like this?

James was coping just fine but then again: he was not Lily and his approach to work was, if not entirely absent, a good deal different than Lily’s.

Maybe James should take some of the burdens off Lily’s shoulders. Yes, that was a good idea. The next time James saw Lily in their apartment he was going to ask her to divide the tasks more evenly.

An opportunity to do so presented itself later that evening when James was about to go to his room, when Lily came walking in, slowly, a little dazed by sleepiness.

“Hey.” James said, awkwardly hugging his arms around his chest.

“Hey.” Lily answered a little surprised.

“Listen, I was thinking. How about we go through our tasks again and divide them in two. I really want to do more and it’s not fair on you to make you do everything on your own.”

“Do you really want to do more?” Lily asked astonished.

“I do.” James said calmly.

“Oh, sure. Do you want me to get the timetable?” Lily asked, gesturing to her room.

“No, we can do that tomorrow. You need your sleep.” James said quickly.

Lily looked at him funnily and crossed her arms. “What would make you say so?”

“You were sleeping in the common room, each afternoon, you must be tired.”

“Yes, sure.” Lily said unconvincingly, but James let it pass.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” James said and went into his room. He sure hoped that this was a step into the right direction.

James found Lily sitting at the desk when he came into the living room the next morning.

She looked up and the outline of a smile was visible on her face.

James heart started beating faster. It had been quite a rocky road from being shouted at, to only have looked at her and finally, to be greeted with something similar to a smile.

Lily looked tired too though, which was worrying.

“Didn’t you sleep well?” James asked and pushed the sleeves of his jumper up, leaning against the wall.

“Why?” Lily asked challenging.

“You look a little tired. That’s all.” James said quickly. He was saying the same things every time, but he did need to say something, and this seemed to be safe enough a bet.

“Oh, no. I slept perfectly fine.”

“Good.” James said slowly.

Lily quickly talked him through the few changes she had made.

It seemed to James that the distribution was still not entirely fair but maybe Lily had done that intentionally, and he would not spoil everything by complaining.

When they were done James somehow sensed that Lily was not keen on walking to breakfast with him, so he excused himself and went back into his bedroom.

Lily and he had just had a perfectly normal conversation (which was actually a rather unusual thing for them), and yet James was frustrated.

In a way, this was surely what he had always wanted, to be able to talk to Lily normally without being shouted at or without feeling the need to make stupid jokes, to impress her.

However, in another way, this was not at all what he wanted.

He wanted to hold Lily in his arms, he wanted to be able to read everything she was feeling from her face without having to speak but then again always being able to speak.

James groaned and walked out of his room again.

Lily was gone and James set off after her.

The weekend was nice. Nothing too interesting happened.

The only slightly remarkable thing was that Lily still seemed to sleep whenever she was in the common room. James couldn’t understand it. Not only was the common room the worst place he could imagine to sleep in, Lily was also doing something she had never done before.

James simply couldn’t get his head around it. Now that he had offered to take over a few tasks, there was nothing he could do.

The only thing he could do to help was to ensure that the common room was relatively quiet when Lily was sleeping. Being head boy came in handy: He had a pathetic but at least some kind of explanation for his request of silence.

Sirius was kind enough not to comment on his behaviour. He could read James’ thoughts so there was really no need asking what he was behaving like that for.

“Keep your head up.” Sirius said before James disappeared on Sunday night. “You have so far never not succeeded in getting something you have always wanted.”

“Well, apart from Lily.” James said sadly. “Also, don’t say getting.”

“It’s not over yet.”

“You make it sound pretty dramatic.”

“If you could see your face you would agree that ‘dramatic’ was the only right way describing this.” Sirius gestured around wildly.

“Thanks.”

“Keep your head up.” Sirius repeated and pushed James out of the room.

James’ happiness did not improve over the next week.

Lily was frustrating him increasingly.

She was participating in class, regularly so but once school was done, she practically fell asleep.

Occasionally, she was talking to teachers and arranging things that were part of her duties at head girl.

She was as brilliant in her role as James had known she would be, still it did not really feel like they were doing this together.

Seeing her acting marvellously was great but not being part of the team made James sad. He wanted to do something to improve their situation, but he couldn’t think of anything.

What was even more irritating was that James started (once again) dreaming of Lily.

She was not only constantly in his thoughts during the day, she was also there during the night.

In the night, he was living his ideal life. Just talking to Lily, flirting and not being turned down was all he desired apparently.

On Thursday, James dreamed something a little different.

Lily was simply lying there next to him, but sometimes, she would also be snuggled into him, breathing slowly. She seemed to trust him. James was the happiest he had been for a long time.

What a pity it had only been a dream. This kind of dream reoccurred quite regularly in the next time.

At times, James could have sworn that he could actually feel Lily’s skin. That he could feel her breath against his neck, that there was actual warmth radiating from a body next to his.

When he woke up, there was obviously no one there. It was a pity this was only a dream, but it was a good dream. In fact, the dream was so good that James couldn’t wait to get into bed to start dreaming again.

The dreams made James happy, but sadly, only momentarily so, because when he saw Lily yawning at the breakfast table or working hard to keep her head up while working at their desk, he realised how powerless he was.

He couldn’t do anything to improve Lily’s situation and it was pathetic creating himself a world in his dreams to make him happy.

On the next Wednesday morning, Lily seemed particularly tired, so James plucked up courage and sat down next to her on the sofa after returning from breakfast.

“Lily, can I talk to you?” he asked carefully.

“Mh.” Lily hummed reluctantly.

“Is everything alright with you?” James asked as gently as he could muster.

“Why would you ask something like that?” Lily asked defensively.

James tried to ignore the slight stab of pain: “Is anything the matter? Do you have problems with anyone? At school? At home?”

“Why are you asking me this?” Lily backed off.

“You seem terribly tired. You sleep a lot in the afternoons, and you don’t have any energy for anything apart from school.”

“Is that bad?” Lily snapped.

“I dare say it is a little.” James said, rather proud how calm he managed to stay.

“Oh, yes, of course. You don’t approve of anyone that is even remotely interested in school, I know.” Lily bit.

“Hey, Lily.” James said and wanted to gently lay a hand on Lily’s arm.

“Stay away from me and don’t call me that.”

“It’s your name.” James said frustrated.

“Oh, you’re so funny.” Lily spat and jumped up.

This was a disaster. James had wanted to help, and he had made everything worse.

He seemed to have a real talent for doing that.

Amazing. Incredible.

Lily slammed the door shut to the apartment and James groaned.

Lily had behaved rather abominably just then and yet all James could think of how it would be to hold her and kiss her.

This didn’t help.

James jumped up and went into the common room, calling as many players from his team together to have a training session.

James felt a little better after playing. His players were exhausted and a little annoyed that he had pushed them so hard, but James was feeling content.

He went back to the apartment, taking off his sweaty shirt while opening the door. He jumped a little when he saw Lily, Alice and Helen sitting on the sofas. He had imagined them to be in the common room as usual.

“Evening.” James mumbled and rushed into his room, painfully aware of his red face.

The only relief was that he could possibly blame the red face on the exercise and not on the embarrassment.

James quickly closed the door, but he thought he heard Lily hiss: “I was not staring!”

James nearly laughed at the incredible imagination his brain managed to muster up. Even though he knew to only have imagined Lily’s words, it still took him a lot longer than usual to cool down.

When he heard the door close and the chatter die away, he dared to walk out of his room, to the bathrooms. He practically sprinted down the halls, not wanting to be seen by anyone, or even worse spoken to. He needed peace and quiet.

Also, with not being seen he would get into bed a lot quicker and like that he could escape reality and seek shelter in the much nicer dream universe.

James practically repeated this procedure every day for the next two weeks.

Every now and then, Lily and he would have a row, which would lead to James scheduling a Quidditch training and avoiding Lily until he went to bed.

Then, it wasn’t really in his power to avoid Lily any longer. He would fall asleep, not actively thinking of her but then again neither actively supressing any thoughts about her.

The next thing he knew was that he was dreaming the incredibly realistic dream of Lily lying next to him, sleeping in his arms.

Often that was all they did, just lying there breathing evenly.

Occasionally, Lily would press herself against James, or James would pull her against him. Just once James had dared to kiss Lily lightly on the forehead. His imagination barely even let him do that and he really didn’t want to ruin the perfect dream with imagining Lily’s reaction to it.

One day, it was terribly late that James had declared the end of the practice.

He really didn’t want to disturb Lily with the tiniest bit of noise, so he decided to sneak into his old bedroom to sleep once again like he had the six previous years.

Funnily enough, he was not able to dream his dream lying in his bed. Too many memories probably prevented him from doing so.

Chapter Text

LILY

Lily did not know what had come over her.

In a sense, it was all McGonagall’s fault. After all, if she had given them a proper homework Lily would have never started wandering around the apartment, looking for something to do.

She would not have found Potter’s door slightly ajar and she would have certainly not entered the room, suddenly overwhelmed by a very comfortable tiredness.

It felt good to feel tired during the night again.

Seeing Potter sleeping so peacefully made her feel calm. Lily walked over to the bed and lay down next to James, it was not really like she was deliberately doing so, she moved automatically and trying to stop herself would have involved far too much willpower than she was able to muster up now that she was suddenly very tired.

Lily had slept better than she had since the beginning of the year, but she never relaxed completely.

She knew there was no way she could be found in Potter’s room in the morning.

Her body woke her up about an hour before she would normally start getting ready. She quietly climbed out of the bed, confused by the pang she felt.

Sleeping an hour or two in the common room wasn’t enough. She knew that now.

However, sleeping a couple of hours in the night, only to wake up extra early wasn’t too good either.

Still, it was some sort of improvement.

Lily had to supress a few yawns at the breakfast table, but she felt a little better.

She was quite excited actually at the prospect of being able to sleep again in the night. Now that she had seen how easy it was falling asleep should hardly be a problem.

Later that day Lily realised how wrong she had been. Back alone in her dark room did not create any sort of tiredness.

She was feeling more alert rather. She was exhausted but she just couldn’t make herself be tired, let alone fall asleep.

She got up again and did her homework. She then went back into bed, a little more tired now than she had been before.

After tossing and turning for at least an hour, Lily got up and slowly walked to Potter’s room.

She told herself she was only doing this as a last resort.

This helped her gather the courage she needed to walk into the room and get into the bed.

In the darkness of the room, these movements felt familiar and natural, not as weird as they probably should if Lily would think about them in broad daylight – something she would never do, by the way.

Keeping this a secret from everybody including herself would surely make it a little less real.

Lily wasn’t stupid, the experience of the night had taught her that falling asleep on her own wasn’t something she could acquire easily or quickly. Judging by the fact that she had never learned, chances were high that it was already too late for her to learn.

Lily exhaled slowly.

She was a little more awake this night than she had been the night before.

It was terribly surreal, lying next to James Potter, in his bed.

She was able to feel the heat radiating from his body and smell the remnants of his shampoo and fragrance.

Lily realised with a blush that she would have known this to be Potter from hundreds or thousands of different scents.

To be fair, he had been luring around her for six years, it was natural that she should know what he smelt like.

Lily yawned and found herself snuggling into Potter. She couldn’t and wouldn’t stop herself, too tired now to care and far too comfortable to deliberately want to change anything about the situation.

As she did the night before, Lily woke up early and left the room before anyone could have noticed that she had been there.

She got ready in her own room and met Potter with an indifferent face when he emerged from his room eventually.

She had unconsciously waited for him and now she needed to pretend she was busy so that he would leave without her. It would do her no good to come to enjoy Potter’s company.

Lily slept as good as she possibly could under the circumstances in the next days.

She was nearly feeling relaxed again. Only the fact that her body would never let her sleep long into the morning (not even on the weekend), prevented her from actually being relaxed.

Speaking of the weekend, Lily woke up around half past 5.

Normally, she would hurry out of the room then and get ready in hers, or maybe read a few chapters of her book but on this day, it was a Sunday, she found herself lying awake in Potter’s bed for a while.

She had learnt on Saturday, that Potter only ever got up well after 10 o’clock so there was no danger in staying for a couple of minutes.

Lily lay there and enjoyed listening to Potter’s soft breathing.

She turned around ever so slightly and looked at him. It was practically dark in the room and yet Lily was able to make out the soft lines from Potter’s face.

She hated to admit it, but he was rather handsome.

His skin looked incredibly soft (which was entirely unfair, given that he probably only ever splashed water at it every now and then) and there were a few freckles scattered over his nose.

He also had long eyelashes (as most boys unfairly do) and strands of hair hanging over his forehead.

Lily smiled, against her will.

Potter’s hair really was something else. In the dim light, it looked nearly black, but Lily knew very well that with a few rays of sunshine it would look like caramel or gold.

The hair was a little curly, or rather wavy. It was as untidy as it was during the day, so Lily suspected that Potter never actually did anything to it.

Lily continued looking at Potter. It was actually pretty weird seeing him so calm, without a trace of a smile on his lips, without the wrinkles around his eyes that appeared whenever he said something or smiled, without the glasses and without seeing the eyes.

The eyes that somehow had a clarity and honesty about them that Lily never felt entirely safe looking into them. What put her off was probably also that the honesty of the eyes did not seem to match the mischievousness of the rest of the face.

Lily sighed and sat up. She stood up and walked to the door, she looked around one last time. No, she was sure she couldn’t trust him.

And yet, she found herself back where she had been in the night, and the night after that. Not able to sleep unless she was next to Potter.

Yes, that was true, even in the Common room she only ever fell asleep now when she had heard Potter’s voice at least once.

It was annoying but she couldn’t do anything about it, which was mainly because she never told anyone about any of this.

Now that she was sleeping a little in the afternoon and in the night participating in class felt once again less like a duty than a pleasure.

As much as she was angry about the whole situation, she was also thankful for Potter.

She would obviously never admit anything like that in front of him. If she was being honest, which she only rarely ever was lately, she would have also admitted that Potter proved himself far more useful than she would have thought him capable of.

Not only because he was the reason she could sleep, also in the way he was taking his duties seriously, in the way he dealt with students’ problems.

Solving problems and arguments was something Potter almost always did on his own for the simple reason that Lily was asleep when he was approached.

Lily was thankful, pity she could never tell him. Potter would only interpret her compliment in a wrong way…

Everything was going absolutely smoothly, and Lily already started planning her year around the sleeping arrangements when one night, Lily nearly messed everything up.

She went to Potter’s room around her usual time, late enough that she could be sure he was asleep but not too late that she would not benefit from the night. That day, however, Potter wasn’t in his bed.

Lily jumped and looked around fanatically, afraid that Potter was lurking in the shadow somewhere. He wasn’t in his room and somehow that made her angrier than if he had found out about her secret.

What business had he not being in his designated bed?

Lily retreated into her own room, obviously not able to sleep a wink that night. She got out of bed early the next day, got dressed and waited for Potter in the living room, fuming.

Potter walked into the living room earlier than he was usually awake and gasped a little when he saw Lily.

“Where were you?” Lily snapped.

“I…”

“Why aren’t you in your bed?” she interrupted him.

“Sorry…”

“A very charming role model you are.”

“Sorry.” Potter said again. “I…”

Lily looked at him expectantly, a little confused when the look on Potter’s face changed from apologetic to doubting.

“Wait, how do you know I’m not in my bed?”

Lily was too flabbergasted as to be able to retort something. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again, if you don’t want me to report you.” It was surely scientifically proven that attack was the best form of defence.

“You would report me for that? Come on Lily.”

“Evans to you.” Lily said and left the room, angry with herself that the conversation had not gone the way she had imagined it would.

Lily went down to the great hall. She was the only one there. She could have thought so, it was long before even the early birds would come to have their breakfast.

Brilliant. This was all Potter’s fault.

Lucky for him, Potter did not address Lily again that day.

She caught him looking at her confused, but he did not say anything.

Lily was very reluctant in going to Potter’s room that night.

In the end, she knew she had to go if she expected to fall asleep at all.

Lily walked on her tiptoes and gently pushed open the door. She was incredibly relieved to see Potter lying there. She walked over to the bed and lay down.

She breathed out relieved, only to nearly start screaming when Potter started speaking.

“There you are.” He mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Lily asked, holding her breath.

“I missed you last night.” Potter seemed more asleep than awake but his words still unsettled Lily.

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t imagine you were next to me.”

“But now you can?”

“Yes?” Potter smiled slightly and opened his eyes.

Lily stared back at him, careful not to move.

“Otherwise, I would hardly be able to speak to you, would I?”

“I guess.” Lily said slowly.

“Do you know how I know this is a dream?” Potter asked.

“No.”

“You’re not as clever as the real Lily.” Potter said affectionately. “That is weird though, because I got the appearance exactly right.”

“This is a dream?” Lily asked, there was no way she could be offended by Potter’s remark, she heard herself speak after all. She was not being as clever as she usually prided herself to be.

“Yes.” Potter smiled. “I couldn’t do this in real life, could I?” he asked and gently caressed her cheek.

Lily couldn’t answer, the touch of his fingers somehow paralysed her.

“I’d love to continue talking but I need to get some proper sleep as well. Good night, Lily.”

“Good night.” Lily whispered back.

Potter smiled and closed his eyes.

“See, I could never have called her that in real life. You should have seen her this morning.” James mumbled before starting to breathe evenly.

Lily stared at him. The worst thing was though that she could not make out what she was thinking or more precisely feeling.

Why wasn’t she repelled by having been touched?

The answer was simple but not easy to give.

Lily no longer seemed to hate Potter.

Okay, she had never hated him in the sense of loathing but even her strong dislike had seemed to fade.

This was bad. Lily sighed quietly and closed her eyes. Though, maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

Lily held her breath and carefully snuggled into Potter, who immediately wrapped an arm around her.

JAMES

James did not sleep at all well in his former bed. He hoped that that was mainly because Sirius kept snoring and Peter mumbling in his sleep.

Sadly, James also knew that not being able to imagine Lily next to him played into him sleeping badly.

James was awake well before his usual time, which also had its merits, as he was able to sneak back into the apartment without Lily noticing he had been away.

Well, in theory he would have been able to sneak back.

However, when he opened the door to the apartment, he saw Lily glaring at him inhospitably. “Where were you?” she snapped.

“I…” James started, quite shocked that his plan hadn’t worked out.

“Why aren’t you in your bed?” Lily didn’t let him finish.

“Sorry…” James said, he did not know exactly why but something about Lily’s tone made him want to apologise.

“A very charming role model you are.” Lily said sardonically.

“Sorry.” James repeated himself. “I…” He started, trying to think of an explanation. That wasn’t too easy with Lily staring at him in that way.

What could he possibly say?

I didn’t want to disturb you. She wouldn’t believe him.

James frowned, realising suddenly that he had no reason to look for an explanation. He didn’t even have to say sorry. It was not Lily’s right to scold him for not sleeping in his bed. How come she knew anyways?

“Wait, how do you know I’m not in my bed?”

Lily didn’t say anything for a while. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again, if you don’t want me to report you.” She said eventually, looking at him in a challenging way.

“You would report me for that? Come on Lily.” James nearly laughed, this was a rather pathetic threat.

“Evans to you.” Lily said and turned around immediately.

James was very thankful that he hadn’t laughed. That would only have made her more furious than she evidently already was.

James exhaled slowly and sunk down on the sofa in the living room.

He was tired and already exhausted. If that wasn’t a brilliant start to a day, he didn’t know what was.

He got up after a while and went into his room to change into his uniform.

He had a normal breakfast with his friends. The only thing troubling him was that he could not possibly figure out how Lily had known that he had spent the night somewhere else.

Even without Lily threatening to tell on him James had no inclination to spend the night not in his room.

After all, that seemed to be the only place he could successfully dream her next to him.

And with Lily having been rather distant and spiky, James really needed to console himself with a kind and soft Lily.

James drifted off to sleep relatively quickly.

It only felt like a few moments before he ‘woke up’ in his dream. Lily was next to him.

James could feel her. He smiled a tiny smile. He was too tired to do more and quietly said: “There you are.”

“Excuse me?” Lily asked. It occurred to James that this was the first time they had spoken in his dream.

“I missed you last night.” James said truthfully, because what was the point in not even being honest in your own dream?

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t imagine you were next to me.” James continued.

“But now you can?”

“Yes?” James couldn’t help but smile. He opened his eyes and looked at Lily.

She was as beautiful as ever, staring back at him a little shocked. She looked exactly like her real self the only exception perhaps the confused look rather than the sharp knowing one on her face.

“Otherwise, I would hardly be able to speak to you, would I?”

“I guess.”

“Do you know how I know this is a dream?” James asked, still studying her carefully.

“No.”

“You’re not as clever as the real Lily.” James said kindly, he did not want to offend Lily. “That is weird though, because I got the appearance exactly right.”

“This is a dream?” Lily asked.

 “Yes.” James said. “I couldn’t do this in real life, could I?” he asked and gently stroke Lily’s cheek with his fingers.

A moment ago, he wouldn’t have thought he could do that even in a dream, but this was a lovely way of being proven wrong.

“I’d love to continue talking but I need to get some proper sleep as well. Good night, Lily.” James whispered.

That was true. He could already feel himself drifting into the deep and not the dream sleep.

“Good night.” Lily whispered back.

“See, I could never have called her that in real life. You should have seen her this morning.” James said quietly, happy to have received a more charitable answer to calling her Lily than he had before.

James drifted off to sleep, only barely able to register Lily cuddling into him and him automatically pulling his arm around her.

He knew in that moment that he would sleep excellently that night, not comparable to the night he had had before.

The next morning, James woke up, not able to hide his disappointment that it had obviously only been a dream.

James stretched and took a deep breath. His eyes were suddenly wide open when he caught a bit of the scent of Lily’s shampoo.

He sat up abruptly and rubbed his eyes. He sniffed the air, but the scent had disappeared, obviously. He had only imagined it.

At breakfast, James poured himself several large cups of coffee.

He needed to do something against the powerful imagination of his.

Today, he would try coffee. If that didn’t work out he could always try some sort of potion the next day and only as a last resort ask Sirius or preferably Remus to charm him.

All this coffee had the inevitable result that James had to go to the toilet, frequently.

He woke up in the night and cursed himself (not literally) for that useless precaution.

He had dreamed about Lily earlier. He was pretty sure he had. Coffee hadn’t helped one bit.

In a sleepy state, James got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He splashed water in his face, maybe, that would help if coffee had the audacity to not do anything.

James walked back into his room and froze on the spot.

Lily was lying in his bed. The water hadn’t helped.

At least, that was his first thought. When he walked closer to the bed, he suddenly thought that maybe he hadn’t dreamed anything.

Maybe this had been real the whole time and that was the reason neither coffee nor water had helped.

This, however, was only a thesis, and a thesis always needed proving.

James lay down in his bed. He took a deep breath and gently pulled Lily over to him.

She was real.

James nearly started laughing out loud, but he quickly bit his tongue. He waited a few moments, not moving a muscle, thinking why he had pulled Lily into him instead of just pinching himself, the by far oldest and most efficient method to prove that one wasn’t asleep.

James took a deep breath and pulled Lily over a little further.

She did not resist being pulled into a hug and James immediately felt bad.

Was he exploiting her?

In the end, he concluded that this could hardly be exploitation as Lily had been the one to come into his bed and also on previous occasions she had not protested.

James felt a little more at ease but could not possibly go to sleep again.

He couldn’t help thinking what this meant. Lily was sleeping in his arms, that surely had to have some sort of effect on their relationship!

Then again, this was not the first time this had happened and there had been no change to their relationship.

Lily had been more irritated with small mistakes if anything.

James sighed and carefully stroked through Lily’s hair. This was the best and worst thing happening to him at the same time. He was holding Lily! But then again, he was experiencing something that would never be in real life, or at least daylight.

There was not much of the night left and James soon found Lily becoming more and more restless.

At last, she opened her eyes and James was willing to risk it, even if that could mean that this was the last time this ever happened.

James smiled at her and quietly said: “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Lily answered just as quietly. She stretched and suddenly her eyes flew open. James did not know what to do now so he just stayed calm.

“Did you sleep well?” James asked calmly.

Lily, however, seemed to start panicking.

What could he do?

James sighed inwardly and decided if Lily would feel better, he would have to pretend that he was dreaming.

She had appeared calm enough when they had talked the night before when James had still been thinking that he was dreaming.

“I haven’t slept enough yet.” James said accordingly and yawned rather convincingly.

He immediately felt Lily relaxing in his arms. James closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly.

Lily seemed to believe him. She waited a couple of minutes before gently freeing herself from his embrace and leaving the room.

James sighed audibly once he heard her door close at the other end of the apartment.

One of the things that troubled James was how he was supposed to act now?

He guessed that Lily would not be too happy for him to tell everyone. He obviously wouldn’t have seriously thought about doing that, but he suspected that Lily would actually much prefer if he didn’t know, so there was no way he could confide in Sirius with a clear conscience.

Amazing.

James decided that he would have to wait and see. He would have to observe Lily’s behaviour and act accordingly.

Amongst other things that meant that he would see for any change in Lily’s obvious tiredness.

James sometimes wondered how he had never heard Alice or Helen say anything about it. Didn’t they think it was suspicious that Lily slept all afternoon and didn’t look any better after that, looking even worse in the morning?

The last thing James decided might seem a little weird, but he reasoned with himself that if he kept all his pranks and his undoubtedly annoying comments up that Lily would feel safest, regarding her secret.

Thinking that he was her secret made James excited but also a little disappointed. It wasn’t nice to think that Lily felt like she had to hide him.

When James met Lily later that morning he grinned at her and said: “Morning, beautiful.”

He took care to sound as different from the conversation, earlier that morning, as possible.

Lily groaned but she seemed to be a little relieved as well. Without answering she left the room and headed to the Great Hall.

“You look just like a flower.” James called after her. Lily sped up and hid behind Alice as soon as they reached the Great Hall.

“What is it?” Sirius asked.

“I wanted to tell her she looked like a flower.” James explained.

“What flower?” Sirius asked, being the perfect wingman.

“A LILY!” James shouted, and they started howling, in Sirius’, and screaming, in his case, with laughter.

James saw that Lily rolled her eyes but there was also an undisguisable smile on her face. There might be a better, less obnoxious way to make Lily feel better, but this worked, and it was easy.

James kept making these kinds of comments throughout the day and Lily seemed to have a hard time pretending not to be amused.

A few years ago, Lily would have chased James through the corridors, but she seemed to be too tired to do so, which was a relief for James. He was sporty and quicker than Lily, but it was much easier to come up with new comments when one wasn’t running around the school, trying to avoid running into people.

With all his comments, James had thought that Lily would not dare to sleep in the common room, as he was there as well.

James found that the opposite seemed to be true. When he walked into the room, Lily seemed to relax immediately.

She glanced over to him a few times, making sure he was still there, it seemed, and then slowly fell asleep, with a smile on her lips, not unlike the one from this morning.

Chapter Text

LILY

This was a dangerous game, but Lily had no choice but to continue believing that Potter knew nothing about this being reality.

Lily was sure that she had given him no reason to believe differently. Also, Potter’s behaviour didn’t change at all.

Lily kept checking for a few days after talking to him in bed. Potter stayed the obnoxious person Lily knew him as and continued showering her in the most obscure of compliments.

Normally, Lily would have been furious but now the ‘compliments’ showed her that Potter had no clue and that was undoubtedly a good thing.

In theory, Lily could have been as calm as ever now, but something was still lacking. She had hoped that her body would be happy enough with a few hours of sleep a night that it would let her doze a little in the common room.

She had hoped that Potter’s presence in the night would be enough, that she could sleep on her own in the afternoon.

Sadly, she was wrong. No matter how hard she tried, Lily could only ever fall asleep now when Potter was around.

This irritated her immensely but after feeling terrible one day after boycotting the whole scheme with not letting herself fall asleep, Lily concluded that sleep was more important than dignity.

Besides, only she knew about this. Helen and Alice had never even started asking questions. They were confused alright, but confusion never changed into concern, which Lily was thankful for. Convincing them that everything was fine would have been far too stressful.

A couple of days passed, and everything slowly seemed to settle into some sort of routine. Waking up at the break of dawn, or even earlier the later the sun rose, then going into her room to change and kill some time before breakfast.

Then breakfast, school, lunch, school, tea, and an afternoon in the common room where she talked little and slept a lot. Then dinner, a short visit to the common room with less sleeping but more talking and then a homework session in her room after which she changed into her pyjamas and slowly made her way into Potter’s room, not breathing until she lay next to him.

Lily was perfectly happy with this routine, even if a little disappointed in herself.

However, things started to change when Lily caught Potter lingering behind, avoiding her but keen to speak to Helen and Alice.

Lily was very quick to discard ‘jealousy’ as a possible explanation for her bitterness in seeing that.

After pondering a little she concluded that she was anxious that her secret shouldn’t come out. That was a good and feasible explanation. 

“Why were you talking to Potter?” Lily hissed when she joined Helen and Alice whom Potter had just left.

“You jealous?” Helen asked with an annoying smirk.

“It was nothing, honestly.” Alice answered diplomatically.

“What do you mean?” Lily asked and sat down next to Alice.

“We weren’t telling him anything!”

“Alice, I am asking why you were talking to him.” Lily said.

“Oh, well, he asked a question.” Alice said slowly. “Which we didn’t answer!” she added quickly.

“What question?”

“If we noticed some strange behaviour.” Helen answered annoyed.

“Strange behaviour?”

“That’s what I said.” Helen shrugged.

“Did he elaborate?”

“No, strangely enough he didn’t.” Helen said sarcastically.

“You arrived, you see.” Alice said kindly.

“That person is beyond irritating.” Lily muttered.

“He sure is.” Helen agreed. “Don’t you think Lily looks a little tired?” she said in a weird voice.

Lily noticed with a startle that that was supposed to be Potter. She forced a laugh and then quickly busied herself with a book.

She returned to her apartment later that day.

After opening the door, she stood there for a while, wondering what this meant. Suddenly the door fell into her back and she stumbled forwards.

“Oh. I’m so sorry!” Potter said and grabbed Lily’s arm while pushing the door shut.

“What business do you have interrogating my friends?” Lily shouted at him.

If she wasn’t mistaken, this was the first time that Potter had touched her outside his room for quite a while. The realisation shocked her.

“Lily.” Potter said in a soothing way. Lily was too busy trying to pull herself free as that she could have registered Potter using her first name.

“I am worried.”

“Oh, you should be.” Lily glared at him.

“No, Lily.” Potter said quickly and sighed. “Can we maybe talk?”  

“There is nothing to talk about.” Lily said through gritted teeth, still trying to pull herself free.

“Lily. I noticed that you… that you look a little tired.” Potter said carefully.

“So, I have an occasional nap in the afternoon.” Lily spat defensively.

“A regular nap.” Potter corrected her.

“So, what?”

“Lily, this isn’t like you.”

“Pah!” Lily huffed. “You don’t know anything about me, and I am happy to think that that will always be the case. Let go off me now or my heel will be the last thing you will have seen.”

Potter opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it again and released Lily’s arm.

“I’m only trying to help.” Potter mumbled.

Lily nearly shouted: “Well then don’t bother me and just let me sleep in your room.”

Luckily, she didn’t say any such thing but simply stormed off into her room.

Even though Lily knew that Potter only pretended to be concerned in order to play some sort of prank on her, a small part of her kept saying that his worries might be genuine.

Being at odds with herself was momentarily the worst thing about the situation. It confused her and took her mind off the really important things.

Lily was exhausted and tired and couldn’t wait to finish her homework in order to be able to sleep again.

She opened Potter’s door with trembling hands a few minutes later. She was agitated but as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was tired again and practically asleep already.

The next morning, Lily woke up with Potter’s arm on her waist.

She instantly blushed but somehow couldn’t bring herself to move. Lily realised, even more embarrassed, that there was no denying how much she enjoyed Potter’s company like this.

The way he held her. The way his soft breathing tickled her neck, or the way Lily felt content and warm just thinking about these things. These realisations hit Lily hard and she got up quickly.

At breakfast, she had calmed down a little, but she still had to ask. She cleared her throat and looked expectantly at Helen. Helen looked at her: “What?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Helen said, focusing on her toast.

“How would you describe a person that likes to be around another person?”

“Excuse me?” Helen asked. “Human?”

“No, well yes.” Lily said and frowned. “I mean: What does it mean if you enjoy being around another person in a way that makes you feel warm and happy even if you don’t speak. That the presence of said person is already enough to make dark thoughts disappear?”  

Saying these things out loud made her realise how true they were. Potter’s presence always had that effect on her. Seeing him, even if she knew he was about to make a silly comment had a sense of familiarity about it and always immediately calmed her.

“This is a trick question, right?” Helen asked and looked at Alice for confirmation.

Lily raised her eyebrows.

“You’re obviously talking about a crush. Though, you being you: you are possibly talking about love.” Lily was suddenly not able to move.

“Why are you asking anyways?” Helen asked.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Alice said. Lily stared at her, even too shocked to be scared. “That’s for that essay we have to write. It does sound like love Lily, well done.” Lily managed to smile and breathed for the first time in what felt like forever.

“Oh, yeah.” Helen said and went back to eating.

“I think… I need to write that down.” Lily stammered and got up, nearly knocking over her mug in the process.

“See you in class.” Alice called good-humouredly.

Lily was thankful that no one seemed to notice anything about her and simply let her go to her room with no obstacles.

Lily closed the door behind her and leaned against it. If either only Helen or only Alice had been of that opinion everything would have been fine, and Lily could have been calm but like this there was no way to be anything but agitated.

Lily surely wasn’t in love with Potter, was she?

She didn’t even call him by his first name for heaven’s sake! Lily groaned and fell onto her bed.

She squeezed her eyes shut and very carefully started thinking about the small chance that there was some sort of truth in what Helen had said.

Lately, Lily had not minded Potter’s presence too much.

Only this morning, she had admitted to herself that she felt calm and in a sense happy whenever she saw him. And then there was of course her inexplicable, rather erratic, in comparison to previous ways, behaviour in the night.

She actively sought Potter out. It was only in his presence that she could fall asleep.

This had obviously not always been like that, but she was becoming more and more dependent on him. The worst thing was that Lily could never control her temper around Potter and that afterwards she would hate herself more than she had ever hated him.

If this was what love was like then being in love was one big mess of disappointment, pain, and an occasional warm feeling.

Was there a way to sue authors for portraying it differently?

“Lily?” James called gently and knocked on her door.

“What do you want?” Lily spat and the self-loathing started immediately.

“I…”
“Did Helen send you?” Lily interrupted him, she had to sit on her hand in order not to slap herself.

“No, I wanted to check that everything is okay with you. We need to go to classes soon and you’re usually not around at this time.” Potter said and Lily laughed bitterly.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I know nothing about you.” Potter suddenly called. “Sorry to bother you.” He added and quickly left the apartment, as it seemed.

Lily groaned and she was sure she could have started crying if the bell hadn’t started ringing in that moment.

She needed to thank whoever tolled the bell, they had possibly just saved her day.

When Lily walked into the classroom, she knew that her day was far from being saved. Potter looked at her coldly and then ignored her for the rest of the day.

Lily knew that this was the least she could have expected after behaving so abominably but it wasn’t nice, especially since she had no way of controlling herself.

Lily tried looking on the positive side but apart from the fact that it was Friday there was nothing.

Potter obviously despised her, she liked him and there was no way she could set any of this right.

Even though the day had started with sunshine it soon mimicked Lily’s mood. It was grey and drizzling softly.

Lily already feared that Potter would be there in the common room with her like the majority of Gryffindor, but she didn’t see him for quite a while and when she did see him later-on, his hair was wet.

He had just come from a Quidditch training.

She thought she saw him glancing at her, but she could never have been sure, which was mainly due to the fact that she practically instantly fell asleep as soon as he entered the room.

Later that day, Lily took extremely great care to not make any noise while climbing into Potter’s bed.

It wasn’t safe to do this but there was no other way if she wanted to sleep.

She did want to sleep. That was the only way she could possibly forget.

Life, however, seemed to have different plans for her. She was just about to settle when she spotted a letter on the blanket.

It said Lily and instantly her heart began racing, not sure what to do. Surely the only thing she should do was leave immediately.

JAMES

Lily was not improving.

It was very easy to see that. Equally easy but painful to see was her friends not seeming to care at all what was going on with her.

After a few days had passed and no little hints had helped, James went for a more direct approach and actually spoke with Helen and Alice. To be fair, he messed it up a little in starting the conversation with: “Have you noticed anything weird about Lily’s behaviour?”

That was not at all smooth and well thought through like James usually approached things.

It was therefore no wonder that neither Helen nor Alice had any answer for him.

James tried again with: “Don’t you think Lily looks a little tired?”

This could have potentially got an answer, but Lily came towards them and James left as quickly as he could.

He hoped they wouldn’t tell Lily anything, after all they didn’t seem to talk much if they didn’t realise she was tired all the time.

James was mistaken, as he soon found out.

He opened the door into the apartment, not knowing that Lily was standing right behind it: “Oh. I’m so sorry!” he said quickly and grabbed Lily’s arm to steady her.

James closed the door but did not let go off Lily.

“What business do you have interrogating my friends?” Lily shouted.

Okay, right. James might have had a sneaking suspicion that they would tell Lily, but he could not have anticipated her being as angry as this as a result.

“Lily.” James said. It was the only thing he could think of and it hopefully also had a soothing effect on Lily. “I am worried.” He said honestly.

“Oh, you should be.” Lily glared at him.

“No, Lily.” James sighed. “Can we maybe talk?” he asked clumsily.

“There is nothing to talk about.” Lily hissed and wriggled her arm around. It was not difficult holding on to it.

“Lily. I noticed that you…” Where was he going with this?

I noticed that you sleep in my bed. That was surely the best way to start a sensible conversation.

“…that you look a little tired.” he said eventually.

“So, I have an occasional nap in the afternoon.” Lily said angrily.

“A regular nap.” James corrected her.

“So, what?” Lily’s eyes were still icy.

“Lily, this isn’t like you.” James said carefully.

“Pah!” Lily shouted. “You don’t know anything about me, and I am happy to think that that will always be the case. Let go off me now or my heel will be the last thing you will have seen.”

James wanted to reply something but there was no sound coming out of his mouth. Maybe that was for the better.

He let go off Lily and eventually managed to mumble: “I’m only trying to help.”

Lily didn’t answer anything to that but simply left. Fair enough.

James woke up in the middle of the night and saw Lily lying next to him. He smiled but sighed immediately afterwards.

It felt like Lily was sending out mixed signals in shouting at him during the day but always coming back into his room during the night. Theoretically, James could live with that if he was sure that Lily was happy.

Thing was: Lily wasn’t happy.

It was plain to see. She was tired most of her time and she seemed to have no energy left for tasks which would have made her ecstatic under normal circumstances.

James would have to continue trying to help her, even if he was running the risk of having Lily throwing things at his head that were incredibly hurtful. He would have to continue trying.

Even if James was determined to help Lily, he decided to stay away from breakfast and give her some space.

However, what he had not imagined, was Lily’s door falling shut long before she usually returned.

It also didn’t open long after she had usually left. James plucked up his courage and walked over to her door. He knocked and said carefully: “Lily?”

“What do you want?” Lily shouted, doing, once again, something James did not expect.

“I…” James tried to explain himself.

“Did Helen send you?” Lily interrupted him.

“No, I wanted to check that everything is okay with you.” James said and supressed a sigh. “We need to go to classes soon and you’re usually not around at this time.” He took great care to sound caring and friendly, to avoid any form of misunderstanding.

Lily’s laughter showed him that he had not succeeded.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I know nothing about you.” James couldn’t help sounding bitter. He was bitter for heaven’s sake! “Sorry to bother you.” James left the apartment and went to classes.

It was incredibly irritating to have Lily not accepting his help. She did not have to be grateful but not attacking him was surely not too much to ask?!

James sat down next to Sirius and only briefly looked at Lily when she came into the room. It was also rather hurtful to see how kind she could be with other people while she only ever shouted at James.

He might have given her a few reasons in the past to behave that way, but he only wanted to help now!

James’ mood didn’t improve over the day, so he scheduled a Quidditch practice to take his mind off Lily. That worked out fine all the way until he took a shower and was alone with his thoughts once again.

James got dressed and ruffled his wet hair before going to the common room. He only glanced at Lily when walking in, chances were that she would fall asleep soon, now that he was there. He had all the time to look at her then.

Lily did fall asleep soon. James knew because he only managed not to look at her for five minutes. He sighed when he saw her calm breathing. It would be a lie to say that he did not look forward to the night each day, but he also knew that that was wrong.

James had to risk it that night. It was the weekend so if Lily did not sleep because he had messed it up, she could at least not hold him responsible for making her grades suffer.

James tried to pick a way of addressing Lily but couldn’t decide. Waiting for her to wake up would scare her away. It was also very unlikely that he would wake up while she was also awake.

In the end, he reluctantly decided to go with some sort of note/letter. Chances were that Lily wouldn’t read the letter, but it was the best option he had.

Over the past days of watching Lily, James had come to the conclusion that Lily was doing her homework in the time he fell asleep.

She was in the common room in the afternoon, not working, she was at dinner and she did her head girl duties and yet she always had her homework.

The only possible time for her to do her homework was therefore the early night. Needless to say, James felt like Sherlock figuring that out. Even though, equally needless to say, everybody could have figured that out.

With that knowledge in mind, James decided to wait to write that letter while Lily was doing her homework. It would seem a lot less suspicious than excusing himself now.

Lily might be unconscious and wouldn’t pick up on it, but Sirius and Remus (probably not Peter) would and that was a risk not worth taking.

James left the common room a good while after Lily had left it.

Somehow, the more likely it became that everything would come to an end, the more careful James became in order to conceal it. Lily needed help even if she wasn’t willing to accept it – from him.

James spent about an hour crafting the letter. There was not yet any risk of Lily coming into his room, so he took time and care to ensure the letter said what he wanted it to say and that in a polite and non-misunderstanding way.

In the end it said:

Lily,

Please do me the favour and read what I have to say. Afterwards, you can do what you want but please let me finish. First things first: I know that you sleep in my bed. I don’t mind. The reason I am writing this to you is that I want to help you. You do look terribly tired most of the time and sleeping around six hours a day (in patches) can’t be healthy. Is there anything I can do to help you? I won’t make fun of you. I thought you should know I know. Talk to me, and we can figure things out.

James

James did not dare to reread the letter after he had been vaguely happy with what he had written, in fear that he was starting to doubt himself.

No. He had written down something mainly sensible and that knowledge had to be enough.

Now, he only had to fall asleep and wait until he woke up again, whether that was because of a screaming Lily, a laughing Lily, a crying Lily, an absent Lily, or something entirely different, he couldn’t possibly tell.

He simply had to wait and see.

Falling asleep is particularly difficult when you feel the need to fall asleep.

Apparently, James had managed to fall asleep after all. Otherwise, he could not have explained waking up a couple of hours later.

James opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. Reality came rushing to him a few moments later and he immediately squeezed his eyes shut, scared what he was about to see.

Lily was not next to him. James quickly checked the time. It was half past three.

Normally, Lily would still be with him. James sighed and dropped his head back onto the pillow. He rubbed his eyes and sat up again, looking for the letter.

He searched for a while, but it wasn’t there. James hoped that this meant that Lily had at least read what he had written. That was a tiny relief.

Nothing compared to the sense of devastation he experienced when thinking he had messed things up for good now, obviously.

James was convinced that he could not fall asleep again, but as luck would have it, now, that he didn’t need to fall asleep and didn’t even think it possible, he dozed off immediately.

James woke up to the sound of the apartment door falling shut.

He sat up bolt right and rubbed his eyes.

As it turned out, that would be the only thing he heard of Lily for nearly two days.

James grew more and more depressed the more time passed without even seeing Lily. To be fair, he did spend quite a lot of time on the Quidditch pitch, a place where you were a lot more likely to see a dance-off between McGonagall and Slughorn than Lily in her own free will.

But even when James spend time in the common room or the great hall, Lily wasn’t there.

Neither Remus nor Sirius commented on that, but James knew that Lily was taking great care to avoid him. That had obviously been a possible outcome James had thought about when writing the letter, but it had seemed a lot less likely than, let’s say: Lily shouting at him, confronting him, talking to him, in short: NOT avoiding him.

James had practically given up every hope on Sunday evening. He had not seen any signs of Lily for two days now and chances were that she had already moved out of the apartment.

James sighed a total of thirty-six times while changing into his pyjamas and getting into bed. This was what you got when you tried to help.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

At first James thought it might have been the bed creaking, but he had not moved being too busy sighing all the time.

“Yes?” James asked carefully. The door opened.

Lily stood there with pink cheeks, staring at James. “Can I come in?” Lily asked quietly.

Chapter Text

LILY

Lily folded the sheet apart for the millionth time that weekend and read the words again.

She had no idea how they could have had any effect on her. At first it was surely the horror of being found out that lead her to leave the room immediately.

The slight tiredness had fallen off her immediately and she was too inexplicably scared as that she could have stayed in the room.

Let alone in the bed.

She knew she was being the worst coward ever but there was quite simply no way she could face the consequences of her behaviour.

In a way, having James being so kind and caring was a lot worse than if he mocked her.

If he had mocked her, Lily would have been able to forget the silly idea of her having feelings for him.

Now there was no denying that Lily’s heart started beating faster.

At first, she tried very hard excusing the fact with fear, but when her heart started beating faster even when she was sitting in a tree far away from any other human being, she could not even make herself believe that she was simply scared.

There was something more and something entirely different for that matter.

Now, that she was holding the paper in her hand once again, early on Sunday night, she was thinking very hard what she had to do now.

She had avoided James all Saturday and up until now all Sunday as well.

Oh, yes. Lily did call him James. It hurt but she realised that calling him Potter was rather childish, especially now that she had slept in his bed, or more precisely in his arms, repeatedly!

Lily was incredibly scared, but she knew she had to get that talk over with. She wanted to have the burden lifted off her and sadly a little more urgently: She needed sleep if she wanted to stand any chance of surviving the following week.

Lily knew that James was a kind guy, she had reason to hope that he would be charitable.

Lily folded the paper again and pushed it underneath her pillow.

She slowly got up and changed into her pyjamas. It was not really late, but today, she did not want James to be asleep when she went into his room.

She needed him to be awake, actually. Seeing him asleep would possibly destroy her.

Lily didn’t know how exactly but she sensed that it was vital she went to James before he was asleep.

After several deep breaths and three attempts to tie her hair into a ponytail, she left her room with shaking hands.

She went over to James’ room and waited. She did not know what she waited for. Possibly for either sense or courage to come to her. If sense came, she might be able to leave but if at least courage came she could stop pathetically standing in front of the door.

Neither sense, nor courage came to Lily.

In the end, her cold feet made her knock tentatively on the door. She held her breath, a little scared that James was somehow already asleep after all.

“Yes?” James called after what felt like a small eternity.

Lily’s hands trembled when she carefully pushed the door open. She kept standing where she was and looked at James, trying to figure out his reaction to seeing her.

Maybe it was the lacking oxygen from not breathing for quite a while, Lily simply couldn’t read him.

She took a breath and asked: “Can I come in?” she had intended for that to sound a little fiercer, but she was not surprised to hear herself sounding very feeble.

James sat up immediately and tilted her head while studying her intently. Lily nervously shifted her weight from one foot to another and kneaded her fingers.

“Yes, of course. Sorry. Come in.” James said kindly, but he was not smiling.

“Thank you.” Lily said and carefully closed the door behind her. “I am ready to talk.” She told him when she turned around again.

James didn’t say anything.

“That is… if you even still want to talk. I mean…”

“I think that’s a good idea.” James said calmly and now there was a tiny smile playing around his lips.

Lily nodded slowly but did not move anywhere.

“Come on, sit down.” James said and patted next to him.

Lily hesitated but soon realised how stupid that was, she had slept in that bed next to him, for heaven’s sake.

“Thank you.” She mumbled while awkwardly climbing onto the bed.

She somehow did not yet dare to get underneath the covers. They had not yet come to a solution and Lily had to be strong – something which was not easily achievable underneath soft and warm covers. She took a deep breath and looked at James who was in turn looking at her expectantly.

“Can I say something?”

“Sure.” James said and only a slight notch of mockery was audible.

“I mean without you interrupting me.” Lily explained.

“Yes.” James said, completely honestly.

“Thank you.” Lily took another deep breath and looked at her fingers instead of James.

“Take your time.” James said reassuringly.

Lily smiled a little and managed to look up again.

“First of all, I have to apologise. For everything basically. I am truly terribly sorry for almost everything I have ever done and said.”

James eyebrows cocked up at this, but Lily decided to ignore him.

“I am, however, particularly sorry for my behaviour these past two days. I should not have ignored the letter. I mean, I did not ignore the letter. I only ignored parts of what you had written. And I avoided you. I am sorry for that. I truly am.”

James looked a little uncomfortable, so Lily quickly went on to the next topic.

“Secondly, I have to thank you. Thank you for being so kind over these past weeks and in that letter.”

Lily had now said everything that she had dared to prepare beforehand. She looked at her fingers again and began stuttering. “Thanks for offering to help… I need… I mean… There isn’t anything… Tired…”

James suddenly put his hand over Lily’s and said: “Hey, Lily. It’s okay.”

Lily had gasped a little and didn’t dare to open her mouth to say anything, afraid a similar sound might come out.

“Would it help if you talked about it?” James asked. Lily shrugged slowly. “I can tell you something about me if it makes you feel bad that you have to share something with me.”

“No…” Lily wanted to protest, but James waved her off.

“Tell me, then.” He said and settled a little more comfortably against the headboard, forgetting to let go off Lily’s hands, which she was very thankful for.

“I trust you know that I am weird. It won’t come as a surprise to you if I confess that I have never been normal.”

“… which is not a bad thing.” James completed the sentence for her.

Lily smiled shortly but she needed to get over with this, so she said: “All my life, I have never slept in a room alone. Okay, I can’t account for the time before my memory formed, but I dare say my parents didn’t leave me alone to sleep. So, you see. I have always shared a room with my sister. There are maybe better roommates, but I have always been used to all the little sounds and in a way, they became a sort of lullaby for me. When I started at Hogwarts, I was put in a dorm with Helen and Alice, they made different sounds but those as well, became a sort of lullaby for me. This might freak you out, but up until a few weeks ago, I had not even attempted to sleep in a room all by myself. I was not terribly surprised when I found out that I couldn’t fall asleep. I could, however, sleep when there were people around. So, I started sleeping in the common room, or outside. Basically, wherever Helen and Alice were.” Lily blushed at this, after all, this wasn’t the complete truth. Lily could actually only ever fall asleep when James was around.

“When did you start sleeping in my room?” James asked and Lily was happy to see that he had blushed a little as well.

“When did you find out I was sleeping in your room?”

“I asked first.” James laughed.

“I don’t really remember. I did not start the day saying to myself: I am going to sleep in James’ room tonight. I was incredibly tired, and your door was open. I dare say a couple of weeks now.” Lily finished quietly.

James was staring at her. “What?”

“Ehm, nothing…” James cleared his throat. “I think I found out the night after we talked.”

“That was sooner than I had thought.” Lily admitted.

“I came back from the bathroom and saw you lying there after I had thought I had only imagined you there all this time.” James said.

Lily smiled and neither of them said anything.

“I think I didn’t tell the entire truth just then, James.” Lily said.

James looked like he was chocking and coughed several times, pulling his hands away.

“Are you alright?” Lily asked concerned.

“It wasn’t a mistake then!”

“What wasn’t?” Lily asked.

“You calling me James.” James said slowly, looking at her with big eyes.

Lily looked away quickly but slowly shook her head.

“No, it wasn’t.” Lily said. “As I said, the complete truth would have been something else.” Lily surprised herself how eagerly she wanted to get away from that topic, particularly as the next one was supposedly even worse.

“What would have been the complete truth then?” James asked kindly.

“I don’t know why, and I don’t know how that’s even possible, but I think that I can now only ever sleep when you are around.” Lily mumbled.

“I thought, I noticed you falling asleep shortly after I entered the room!” James smiled kindly.

“Oh, I thought I had been a little more subtle than that.”

“I thought maybe you wanted to make a point to show me how little you were interested in what I had to say.”

“No!” Lily shouted, embarrassed that James would think something like that.

“To be fair, judging by your old behaviour that thought wasn’t too far-fetched.” James smiled.

Lily groaned and fell forwards, burying her head in some cushions.

“I’m sorry.” She said, the pillows muffling her voice.

“Hey, it’s okay.” James said and rubbed her shoulders.

Lily tensed up immediately.

“I can’t even say I forgive you.”

Lily’s head shot up.

“… because I was never angry with you.” James explained calmly.

“But I have been such a brat.”

“Do you want me not to forgive you?” James asked with a frown.

“No! Of course, I do!” Lily practically shouted.

James looked at her in surprise.

“What?”

“I think you need to sleep.” James said slowly. Now it was Lily’s turn to frown.

“I am tired.” She said slowly. “Can I sleep here?”

“Do you think I’m a monster?” James asked, his jaw dropping. “Of course, you can stay. As long as you want. In fact, if it was for me to decide you would never have to sleep alone again.”

Luckily, James did not seem to expect any kind of answer to that, so Lily simply climbed under the blanket, willing her face to turn into a more normal colour.

Only when Lily was lying down properly, she realised that the hard part of the evening was not yet over. She was lying next to James after all and they were both awake!

JAMES

“Yes, of course. Sorry. Come in.” James heart was pounding quickly in his chest. It was hard enough to press these words out, attempting to smile would have been too much.

“Thank you.” Lily said and took her time closing the door. “I am ready to talk.”

James bit his tongue, shouting how excited he was would do no good and on top of that he did not even know what she wanted to tell him.

She only wanted to talk. Predicting an outcome would not do him any good.

“That is… if you even still want to talk. I mean…” Lily stammered.

“I think that’s a good idea.” James interrupted her, happy how calm he managed to sound. He was even able to smile a little.

Lily nodded and stayed where she was.

“Come on, sit down.” he said and patted the mattress next to him.

Lily waited a little while, but she came over to him in the end.

“Thank you.” Lily said quietly and climbed onto the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “Can I say something?” she whispered.

“Sure.” James said, he could not help sounding a little bit sarcastic.

Only the fear of what was going to happen stopped him from making everything worse.

“I mean without you interrupting me.” Lily sounded like she was going to but did not roll her eyes she only exhaled slowly.

“Yes.” James said, Lily not rolling her eyes unsettled him a little and he could no longer see anything funny about the situation.

“Thank you.” Lily said and neither looked at James, nor started speaking.  

“Take your time.” James said. While Lily was slowly starting to speak James realised that he had said that purely to make Lily feel better and not to delay the conversation. It was not too much to say that he was proud of himself.  

A tiny smile appeared on Lily’s lips when she looked up and started speaking. “First of all, I have to apologise. For everything basically. I am truly terribly sorry for almost everything I have ever done and said.”

James could not help to look surprised. He was not mad though. It was reassuring in a way to have part of the old Lily back.

“I am, however, particularly sorry for my behaviour these past two days.” Lily continued. “I should not have ignored the letter. I mean, I did not ignore the letter. I only ignored parts of what you had written. And I avoided you. I am sorry for that. I truly am.”

James broke the eye contact and bit his lip.

While writing the letter he had never thought that he could make Lily avoid him, therefore make him sad, which made her apologetic and him uncomfortable.

To be fair, no one could have probably taken all these things into account.

“Secondly, I have to thank you.” Lily said, and James was happy to be pulled away from his thoughts.

“Thank you for being so kind over these past weeks and in that letter.”

James looked at Lily again, just in time to see her look down at her fingers. She started speaking again but she barely managed to say a few words, let alone a coherent sentence.

“Thanks for offering to help… I need… I mean… There isn’t anything… Tired…”

James impulsively placed his hand on Lily’s and squeezed gently. “Hey, Lily. It’s okay.”

Lily didn’t look up, and she didn’t say anything. James bravely continued speaking: “Would it help if you talked about it?” Still no answer from Lily, but she shrugged. “I can tell you something about me if it makes you feel bad that you have to share something with me.” James said, trying to help.

“No…” Lily started but James interrupted her, sensing that that wasn’t the problem. “Tell me, then.”

He said and leaned back. It would be a lie to say that he forgot that he was holding Lily’s hand, still, he continued holding it, especially since Lily had not shown any signs of discomfort.

“I trust you know that I am weird. It won’t come as a surprise to you if I confess that I have never been normal.”

“… which is not a bad thing.” James added quickly.

Lily had quite the talent to make things sound bad that he loved about her.  

Lily smiled a little and quickly continued speaking. I felt weird to have Lily voluntarily telling him things about her life. In the most positive sense weird of course.

Lily told him about her sleeping habits. He kept a passive expression and tried not to throw her off by any reaction at all. He saw that Lily blushed, but he did not address it.  

“When did you start sleeping in my room?” James asked unable to control his face, which meant that he was blushing.

“When did you find out I was sleeping in your room?”

“I asked first.” James laughed, a good way to hide his nervousness.

“I don’t really remember. I did not start the day saying to myself: I am going to sleep in James’ room tonight.” James stopped breathing.

Had he actually just heard his name, his first name coming from Lily’s mouth?

“I was incredibly tired, and your door was open. I dare say a couple of weeks now.” Lily finished completely unfaced. James stared at her, maybe it was an accident. “What?” Lily asked.

“Ehm, nothing…” James said quickly and cleared his throat. “I think I found out the night after we talked.”

“That was sooner than I had thought.” James could not read her emotions, but then maybe he was too distracted by Lily calling him by his name.

“I came back from the bathroom and saw you lying there after I had thought I had only imagined you there all this time.” James explained.

Lily smiled but neither of them said anything.

“I think I didn’t tell the entire truth just then, James.” Lily said gently, but James had to focus on not chocking to death. He coughed and slapped his chest. This was pathetic.

“Are you alright?” Lily asked concerned.

“It wasn’t a mistake then!” James blurred out.

“What wasn’t?” Lily asked, frowning.

“You calling me James.” James said, no longer coughing but staring at her.

Lily looked away, but she did shake her head. “No, it wasn’t.” she said.

James had trouble finding a normal breathing rhythm while Lily was already talking on: “As I said, the complete truth would have been something else.”

“What would have been the complete truth then?” James asked, a little amused how quickly Lily wanted to move on.

“I don’t know why, and I don’t know how that’s even possible, but I think that I can now only ever sleep when you are around.” Lily mumbled.

James’ heart was beating as fast as it possibly could. Still, he needed to find something to say that would not scare Lily off. As friendly as he possibly could James said: “I thought, I noticed you falling asleep shortly after I entered the room!

“Oh, I thought I had been a little more subtle than that.” Lily answered. The tone of her voice had not changed, James had been successful.

“I thought maybe you wanted to make a point to show me how little you were interested in what I had to say.” James heard himself saying. He had thought about this quite a lot, but he had not planned on saying anything about it to Lily.

“No!” Lily shouted quickly. She looked uncomfortable, but James sensed that they were on safe territory right now.

“To be fair, judging by your old behaviour that thought wasn’t too far-fetched.” James said and smiled. Lily groaned and buried her head in some cushions lying on James’ bed.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was difficult to understand from underneath that cushion.

“Hey, it’s okay.” James said quickly. He hesitated for a tenth of a second but then gently squeezed Lily’s shoulders. He took a deep breath and said: “I can’t even say I forgive you.”

Lily’s head shot up and James quickly pulled his hands away, holding them defensively in front of him. “… because I was never angry with you.” He continued calmly.

“But I have been such a brat.” Lily whispered.

“Do you want me not to forgive you?” James asked and frowned. Lily had not once properly behaved like herself all this time.

“No! Of course I do!” Lily shouted. James jumped a little and raised his eyebrows. “What?” Lily asked.

“I think you need to sleep.” James said slowly. Lily not being herself could easily be attributed to her lack of sleep.

Lily frowned at James in return and said: “I am tired.” She waited a couple of seconds before asking quietly: “Can I sleep here?”

“Do you think I’m a monster?” James asked, shocked that Lily could possibly think he would turn her out. “Of course, you can stay.” He said quickly, adding, before he could help himself: “As long as you want. In fact, if it was for me to decide you would never have to sleep alone again.”

Lily did not say anything in return, but James doubted that he would have been able to either, so he simply watched Lily pulling the blanket over her.

She lay down and exhaled happily. James slid down the headboard and settled comfortably next to Lily.

Neither of them said anything for quite a while. That should not have come as a surprise, considering that they were planning on falling asleep. However, James sensed that he was becoming more and more awake. Not speaking seemed weird.

James waited a couple more seconds before opening his mouth, starting to speak.

As it happened, Lily had started speaking exactly at the same time. James turned to face her and smiled brightly.

“You go first.” He said.

“No. You go first.” Lily said with a red face.

James continued smiling and complied. “I just wanted to tell you that I am really happy that you are here next to me again.”

Lily’s eyes widened and she quickly looked away. James nodded, willing himself to accept Lily’s obvious feelings. Once again, this should not have been a surprise.

“I wanted to ask if you could maybe let me sleep in your arms but that seems rather stupid now compared to what you said.” Lily mumbled.

James’ eyes shot over to her. She wasn’t looking at him. James stared at her.

Did this mean that he had maybe been mistaken just then? Did this mean that Lily’s feelings were a different to what they had just seemed? Or was this all completely unrelated to Lily’s feelings?

“You don’t have to. You can say no. I was just wondering that maybe you could. It might help me fall asleep…” Lily said quickly.

James noticed that she thought that he didn’t want to. To be fair he had done nothing apart from staring at Lily and she wouldn’t even know that as she was not looking at him.

James giggled quietly and without a word pulled Lily into his chest. Lily gasped in surprise, but she relaxed almost immediately. James pulled the blanket away from between them and draped it over them instead. He could not supress a shudder when he suddenly felt the warmth of Lily’s body against his own.

“Thank you.” Lily whispered and smiled at him timidly.

“Are you comfortable?” James asked. Lily seemed to think for a while. She nodded but shifted a little, getting even closer to James. James sighed quietly and squeezed Lily.

Lily giggled and buried her head in James’ chest. James closed his eyes with a smile on his lips. He was not exactly sleepy just yet. There was too much adrenalin rushing through his veins. He did feel very comfortable though and sleepiness would surely arrive soon.

“You smell really nice.” Lily said nearly inaudibly. James couldn’t help it and laughed.

“Did you mean to say that?” James asked. Lily pressed her forehead into his chest and groaned.

“Maybe at some point but not now.”

“Oh?” James asked, now that Lily was lying so close to him there was no way for him to conceal his fast heartbeat.

“At a point where it would have been appropriate.” Lily explained.

“Huh?” James asked.

“Can’t we just say at some point and not worry about it now?” Lily groaned.

“If you want.” James said.

“Thanks.” Lily said and shuffled ever so slightly closer to James.

“Lily?”

“James?”

“You smell really nice.” James said. There was no trace of mockery in his voice. This might have been the most serious he had been in ages.

“And how exactly do you expect me to be able to sleep right now?” Lily asked, but James didn’t need to answer because she yawned before he could have answered honestly.

“There you go.” He said, seriousness gone again.

“Still not fair.” Lily mumbled and attempted to hit James which simply resulted in her hand lying on James’ chest, making it hard for him to even think of falling asleep.

“That’s not fair.” James mumbled when he was positive that Lily was already sleeping.

It took James quite a while to fall asleep. Whenever he felt like he was close, he was immediately wide awake again just because he suddenly remembered what situation he was in.

Only when he was so exhausted that he could not form any coherent thought, he finally managed to drift off to sleep.

Chapter Text

LILY

Lily had no problem figuring out where she was. She had woken up. That meant that she had been

asleep which meant that she was in James’ room, as she was at Hogwarts at the moment.

She had a little more difficulty figuring out what exactly had happened.

After concentrating on her surroundings with her eyes closed, she concluded that she was lying in James’ arms. How had she ended up there?

Lily concentrated and tried to remember what had happened the evening before.

Lily shuddered when she remembered what had happened. Had she actually just asked him if he could hug her? Or even worse, had she actually told him he smelled nice?

Lily squeezed her eyes shut in a pathetic attempt to block out the memories. She could only consider herself lucky that she had dared to come to James’ room at the time she did. Who knows what she would have done if she had been even more sleep deprived?

After a while, Lily dared to open her eyes and glanced at James. His eyes were still closed, and he was breathing evenly.

Lily put her head onto James’ arm and looked at him. Okay, she was staring, but as no one was there to witness it, there was no reason for her to put such a negative connotation to so simple and innocent an act.

Lily couldn’t help noticing James’ long eyelashes again. There was a little light coming from the window and that was enough to cast long shadows of his lashes onto James’ cheeks.

His cheekbones were clearly visible, defining his soft face. James’ lips only added to the feeling that his face was sculptured by those Greek artists.

They had sharp edges but looked soft and warm.

Lily sighed a little and let her eyes wander to James’ hair. It was unbelievably untidy. Lily couldn’t help reaching out and trying to soothe it down. She couldn’t achieve anything but that did not make her pull her hand away. On the contrary: she continued stroking through the hair gently.

She was mesmerized by the look and feel of James’ soft locks. She was so caught up that she did not notice James waking up.

Only when James grabbed her hand did she realise with a little scream.

“Sorry.” They said at the same time.

“What are you sorry for?” James asked with a frown.

“Waking you. What are you sorry for?” Lily asked and pulled her hand away.

“Scaring you.” James said. He turned away, leaving Lily feeling immediately cold.

“Oh, yes. We should get up.” Lily said and was about to sit up, when James turned to her again, now wearing his glasses.

“Nonsense.” He said with a smile. “We still got ages and I am not letting you go.”

“Why?” Lily asked, shivering.

“Come on Lily, you know exactly why.” James sighed.

“Do I?” Lily asked with chattering teeth.

James frowned but he didn’t say anything. He opened his mouth but seemed to change his mind. He shook his head and mumbled: “Come here.” He wrapped his arms around Lily a little awkwardly and pulled her into him, so that she was flushed against his chest.

Lily shivered but she no longer felt cold.

“What exactly did you mean when you said we still got ages?” Lily asked after a while. She felt like it was too bright outside already for it to be so early in the morning.

“I meant… that breakfast is not vital?” James asked carefully.

“James!” Lily groaned and pushed him away. “I am not not having breakfast with Helen and Alice.” She said and sat up.

“But I don’t want you to go.” James sat up as well.

“Do you think I want to go?” Lily asked.

They stared embarrassedly at each other when they realised what they had both just said.

“I have to go.” Lily said.

“Before you go.” James said and grabbed her hand. “I am fine with keeping this a secret. Feel free to treat me the way you always do.”

“The way I always did.” Lily corrected him quietly.

“Don’t worry on my behalf. All I need to know is that you’ll be back this evening.” James said and smiled.

“Thank you.” Lily said and threw her arms around James’ neck. “I promise I’ll get better.” She whispered.

James held her close. Lily wondered for a second if she actually had to have breakfast but then James gently pushed her away.

“Go on then. See you.” He said with a smile.

Lily got up reluctantly. James laughed. “I have to get dressed now. I mean, feel free to stay.”

Lily groaned and threw a cushion at James before racing out of the room.

“Another time then!” James called, and Lily threw the door shut. She did not dare to look into the mirror in her room, she knew fully well that her face was as red as humanly possible.

Lily got changed quickly and was happy that she managed to get to the Great Hall without running into James again.

It had hurt a little to hear him be so understanding. That only showed that he did not deserve to be treated by her in that way. Walking into the Great Hall it also hurt realising that a complete turnover of her behaviour wasn’t possible. It would take too long to explain, and a good amount of people would most certainly start mocking her. She was a coward but there was no fast cure for that.

Lily walked over to Helen and Alice. James was sitting a couple of places further into the Great Hall, talking animatedly with Sirius and Remus.

Lily smiled instinctively and overenthusiastically greeted Helen and Alice. Alice joyfully answered her “Good morning!” and Helen only frowned.

They did not notice anything more than that. Lily was relieved. It would be best if she could choose the time she wanted to share her secret.

Everything went smoothly up until the afternoon. Lily was just about to settle into her usual lying position on the sofa when James plunged down next to her, making her jump, gasp and causing her heart to beat quicker.

“Hey there Lily.” James said and grinned. Lily glared at him. How was this supposed to help them keep their secret?

“Please.” Lily whispered.

James smile faltered a little, but he recovered himself quickly and said in his usual mocking voice: “Do you honestly chose homework over me?”

There was a weird stress on homework. The whole sentence was weird, considering that she had not really said anything. “I know you can’t resist me, Lily.”

“Evans.” Lily corrected him, nervous about making her voice sound normal. James was going somewhere with this she hoped, and it would be best to support him.

“Oh, come on. I’ve got an idea. You let me call you Lily and I will leave you in peace to do your homework.”

There it was again, that weird stress on homework.

Suddenly Lily realised.

James was helping her! She had not realised before that their new sleeping arrangement meant that she had no time to do her homework in the evening.

How come he had realised that, and she hadn’t?

Lily could only stare at him in amazement.

“Do we have a deal, Lily?” James asked. Lily could now see that the hopefulness in his voice was concerning her getting the secret message.

“Evans.” Lily said and shoved James away, gently. She smiled for a split second, and James immediately relaxed. He stood up and put his hands up in defeat, he laughed and dropped his hands.

“I’m not yet defeated.” He declared and left with a wink.

Lily had to work hard in order not to smile.

Helen and Alice had basically not been aware of any part of that conversation. Lily simply turned towards them and got her books out of her bag, that she had automatically discarded when she had sat down. She concentrated hard on a possible explanation for her suddenly doing her homework again in the common room.

It turned out she needn’t have worried. As soon as she opened a folder Alice exclaimed: “Oh, good. I was hoping you could help me with Transfiguration.”

“Sure.” Lily answered quickly and started to relax.

Doing her homework in the common room took a lot longer than doing it in the calmness of her own room, but that was a price she was most willing to pay – it meant she would get a good night’s sleep.

Once they were done with everything Lily settled into a comfortable position and enjoyed actually participating in Helen and Alice’s conversation.

Everything was back to normal. Lily had only finished thinking that thought when James plunged down next to her once again.

The touch of his skin would probably never not make her body tingle all over.

“How was that homework session, Lily?”

“Evans.” Lily corrected him again, she was wondering what James was trying to help her with now.

“Come on Lily. I let you do your homework in peace that means I can call you Lily!” Oh, he didn’t want to help, he only wanted to tease her.

“I never agreed to that, Potter.” Lily answered. She was rather shocked to see how easily she was able to adapt to her icy voice.

“I only helped, Lily.” James said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Sod off, Potter.”

“He did only try to help.” Sirius suddenly intervened. Lily’s eyes shot to him. Sirius was screwing up his eyes. He was right, James had only tried to help.

“Yeah, right.” Lily said feebly.

“Come on, Lily. Give him a chance.” Remus joined in. “He only wanted to help.”

Lily noticed horrified that her lips had started to quiver. She jumped up and grabbed her bag.

James’ eyes were widened in shock, but she needed to get away from all of them immediately. Without saying anything Lily ran out of the common room. She didn’t even say goodbye to Helen and Alice.

Lily ran to the apartment. Tears started streaming down her face. She wasn’t quite sure why she was crying.

Possibly because she was such a coward.

Mainly, probably because everything Sirius and Remus had said was true. James and only wanted to help.

How often had he only wanted to help in the past? How often had she behaved as abominably as she did today but then intentional? Lily went into her room. She put on her pyjamas with shaking hands. The sobs that made her whole body tremble didn’t help either.

After getting dressed she automatically made her way into James’ room. He wasn’t there. Lily started crying even more violently.

She sat down at the edge of the bed, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. The longer she spent alone in the room the more desperate she became.

Why wasn’t James back yet? Maybe Sirius and Remus were trying to convince him what an awful person Lily was. Maybe they had succeeded.

Lily held her breath when she heard a noise.

That had happened so suddenly that she was now hiccupping. Even though the noises she made distracted her she heard the apartment door closing. She heard James’ steps and she heard him stopping in front of the door. Lily was on her feet before James even pushed the handle down. When he opened the door and walked into his room with a worried expression, Lily ran over to him and fell into his arms. Sobbing and hiccupping.

“Hey. What’s the matter?” James asked kindly and stroke Lily’s hair, she only sobbed louder.

He was so kind, and she was always so mean!

“Calm down, Lily.” James hugged her and Lily clung to his chest. “I’m here for you, beautiful.” James whispered into her ear.

Lily let go and laughter mixed in with the sobbing and hiccupping. “I’m not beautiful.”

James grabbed her shoulders and looked at her. “Yes. Yes, you are.” He said seriously.

Lily’s lips started quivering again and James pulled her into his arms. Lily stopped sobbing but she was still hiccupping, and tears continued rolling down her cheeks.

She could never deserve James.

JAMES

The way from the common room to the apartment was a weird one.

It felt like James was running and at the same time walking backwards. He wanted to be with Lily, but after her rushed departure he couldn’t be sure that he would find her in his room, or even in the apartment.

James had not been able to resist an opportunity to tease Lily. Only a little and he had hoped not too meanly.

However, when Sirius and Remus suddenly joined in everything became too real – Lily’s answers had been too real, Lily’s behaviour had been too real. James would have loved nothing more than to immediately run after her, but he felt like he needed to set things right for Sirius and Remus. There was no doubt that they had tried to help him, but this needn’t happen again.

So, instead of racing after Lily, James had gestured to Remus and Sirius to follow him upstairs. In their room he had just about explained everything to them.

He had cut short any of Sirius’ suggestive remarks and calmly answered Remus questions. They were now as thrilled and worried as he was. Thrilled because of the general situation and worried because of Lily’s very real departure.

They had tried to cheer him up, but that didn’t stop James from biting his nails now.

He was standing in front of the apartment door. He took a deep breath and opened it. He walked carefully over to his room, took another deep breath and carefully pressed down that handle as well. He did not want to get his hopes up only to be greeted by an empty room.

Whatever he had expected, it was surely not to be nearly knocked down by a violently crying Lily.

James caught her and held her close. He soothingly stroked her hair and gently asked: “Hey. What’s the matter?” Lily’s body was shaking only stopping every now and then for a hiccup. “Calm down, Lily.” James held Lily tightly, willing her to stop crying.

“I’m here for you, beautiful.” James said quietly.

Lily laughed bitterly and pushed herself away a little bit. “I’m not beautiful.” She said defiantly.

James put his hands onto her shoulders and looked at her. “Yes. Yes, you are.”

The second time now that he had been entirely serious. Lily looked at him with big eyes and a little disbelievingly. Her lips started quivering again and James pulled her into his arms. Lily’s body stopped trembling, but James knew that she was still crying. He simply stood there and held her.

Once Lily had calmed down a good deal with only the occasional hiccup to disturb the silence, he carefully manoeuvred them to the bed. He sat down and pulled Lily into his lap, so that her back was against his chest and his arms around her waist.

“Before you can hopefully tell me why you’re crying, I think you should know that I told Remus and Sirius about this. They meant no harm but if that is supposed to never happen again, they needed to know. You can trust them.” James said calmly.

“So, they didn’t try to convince you I’m a horrible person?” Lily asked quietly.

“No. Why would they do that? They love you!” James said and gently pulled Lily into his arms, so that he could look at her.

“I am a horrible person, though.” Lily said sadly.

“You are not a horrible person.” James said.

“I am.” Lily said. She was looking bravely at him, but tears started streaming down her cheeks again.

“Is that why you are crying?” James asked carefully. Lily nodded slowly. She looked so miserable and if she was in great pain that James’ heart clenched painfully. “Why would you think you’re a horrible person?” he whispered.

“I have always behaved abominably towards you even if you were never mean. You never crossed a boundary and you actually respected me for who I am while I never once tried to see how great you are. I don’t deserve you.”

“Funny you should say that.” James said, and Lily frowned. “I don’t deserve you.”

Lily laughed bitterly but James continued: “You are always kind to everyone. You are incredibly clever. You are beautiful.”

“I have never been kind to you.”

“You only reacted the way any sane person would to my pranks.”

“A lot of girls reacted differently.”

“Yes, but I said: ‘sane person’. That doesn’t include those that have a crush on me.” James winced.

“I’m not sane.” Lily mumbled.

“Yes, you are. You are intelligent, quick, clever, wise, hell, you’re sage!”

Lily blushed and glanced at him from underneath her eyelashes. “No, I mean: I’m not sane.” Lily repeated.

“Yes…” James started but stopped. “Wait.” Did Lily say what he hoped she said? “When you say you’re not sane… Do you say that because… you have a crush on me?” James asked, very uncomfortably.

“No.” Lily said and started at him. Before his heart could shatter into a thousand pieces she added: “It’s more than that.” Lily smiled carefully.

James couldn’t stop staring at her. Lily became more and more insecure. Her smile began to falter, and she could no longer look into his eyes, she carefully buried her head in James’ chest. “Your heart!” Lily exclaimed and pulled her head away.

“What did you think would happen when the girl I have been in love with for these past six years tells me something like that?”

“You were in love with me?”

“Could I have made it any more obvious?” James asked.

“But you always teased me.”

“Lily, I wanted you to notice me.”

“But you teased everyone.”

“You’re contradicting yourself and also: I only ever teased you continuously.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel special?” Lily asked cheekily.

“That’s all I’ve got.” James said apologetically.

“Don’t say that.” Lily whined and his her face in her hands.

“What is it?” James asked and carefully pulled Lily’s hands away.

“It’s all a bit much, I think. Ah, I don’t know what I think. I only now realised what a great guy you are, you always have been! I feel so horrible for what I have done and how blind I’ve been. I know there is no way you can respect me now…”

“Hang on a minute.” James said and frowned. “Did I not express myself clearly?”

Lily bit her lip and looked at him expectantly.

“You do know that when I say I have been in love for you these past six years that that is still the case.” Lily frowned a little. “I always thought you were so clever.” James teased. “Lily. I am in love with you.” He said very slowly and carefully.

“Even right now?”

“Especially right now.” James said and pressed a kiss to Lily’s forehead. “Lily, this is the first time I can actually hope that you might return my feelings. I am over the moon!”

“But why would you love me?” Lily asked, eyes filling with tears.

“I admire everything about you Lily. I admire your dedication to school. I admire your ability to get along with anyone. I admire your kindness. I admire your bravery.”

“Brave?”

“You’re in Gryffindor for a reason.” James smiled. “There are not a lot of people that would have been brave enough to trust me with such a big personal story or even to come back and admit the truth.”

“Do you really think I was brave?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you really think I am kind?”

“We can go on like this forever if we have to, but please just believe me when I say I am in love with everything about you.”

“Don’t I annoy you sometimes?”

“Of course, you do. You annoy me right now, but why should that mean I would love you less? And before you ask: You annoy me ever so slightly because I think about the things we could do if we weren’t arguing about this.”

“Such as?”

“You could tell me what you love about me.” James said with a cheeky grin.

“Right now, I honestly don’t know.” Lily groaned. “Everything, I suppose.” She added with a small smile and with that managed to completely knock the wind out of James.

“Even Quidditch?”

“Have you seen yourself play?” Lily asked. “Just because I don’t like to be off the ground doesn’t mean I can’t admire your skills.”

“Did you just say that I am good at Quidditch?”

“You’re amazing!” Lily said.

“Thank you.” James said and blushed.

“You’re a total goofball.”

“Hang on, who started all of this?”

“Well, technically you.” Lily smiled.

“Okay, fair point.” James frowned and started laughing. “Look at the two of us. No one could paint a more pathetic picture.”

“Ah, I’m sure they could.”

“How so?”

“We could be sitting on opposite ends of the beds, staring awkwardly at each other.”

“You’re right, that would be more pathetic.” James agreed. “Only slightly though.”

“I think it’s your fault.” Lily said and snuggled into James’ arms.

“Why?”

“You’re the dashing guy, you should be the one taking initiative.” Lily said.

“Dashing?” James asked amused.

Lily groaned and threw her hands in the air. “I told you, you smelled nice, what did you think would be next?”

“I’m just confused that the brightest witch of the year would not be able to see the truth.”

“You can’t possibly tell me that you have no idea how gorgeous you are after all that time you spent prancing through the castle.”

“Was I really prancing?” James asked horrified.

“Yep, that’s how I would describe it.”

“I had no idea you studied me so closely.”

“I did not!” Lily shouted. “Only occasionally.”

“I’ll take that.” James said and squeezed Lily. “I can’t really believe I actually get to hold you like this.” He said quietly. Lily leaned her head against his shoulder and smiled up to him.

“Thank you, for everything.” She said quietly. Lily closed her eyes and nuzzled closer.

“Do you want to sleep?” James asked carefully and pushed a strand of hair out of Lily’s face. Lily nodded.

“Okay, let’s just lie down properly.” James said. Lily whined a little, but she let James change positions.

“Good night, Lily.” James said and kissed Lily’s cheek.

“And how am I supposed to fall asleep now?” Lily asked, her eyes closed but a faint red shimmer on her cheeks.

“That’s for you to figure out.” James said and quickly kissed her cheek again.

“You’re cruel.” Lily said and pressed herself against James. James breath hitched, and he replied: “You’re cruel!” Lily giggled quietly but didn’t say anything.

“Good night.” James sighed.

“Good night.” Lily answered sleepily.

James yawned and closed his eyes. He was completely happy, apart from the fact that it was Tuesday and not Saturday the next morning.

He would have loved to be able to lie with Lily like that forever.

James was woken up the next day by soft lips kissing his cheek. He opened his eyes and blinked. Lily had switched the light on.

“Pay back.” She said proudly.

“What’s with the light?” James squinted. He hoped to distract Lily and himself from the fact that his face was bright red.

“We have to get up.”

“Now?” James whined.

“In a minute.” Lily answered.

“Couldn’t you have woken me up sooner?”

“I think you’d probably hate me now if I’d done that.”

“I could never hate you.” James said seriously and pulled Lily close. She looked into his eyes. James’ heart immediately started beating quicker.

“Never.” James repeated and kissed the top of Lily’s nose.

“That was an anti-climax.” Lily giggled quietly.

James ignored her and whispered: “I will always love you.” He leaned forward, closed his eyes and gently kissed Lily on her lips.

Lily stared at him when he pulled back and stood up. She seemed to have a similar sensation to his.

“You can’t leave me with this!” Lily said when she finally found her voice.

“I can’t, can I?” James asked and grabbed his glasses from the nightstand.

“No, you can’t.” Lily declared and jumped out of bed.

James caught her around her waist and twirled her around so that her back was pressed against the wall. He leaned forward slowly and kissed Lily.

He did not only press his lips to her as he did before. He lingered and slowly started moving his lips.

His hands wandered to the small of Lily’s back. She was pressing against him, arms around his neck. Lily sighed quietly and James immediately pulled away.

“There was a reason why I wanted to leave it at that.” James said and panted slightly. “Lily, we have to go to school. You can’t do that to me.”

“Do what?” Lily asked innocently.

“That.” James said. He took one of Lily’s hands and pressed it against his hearts. “I bet my pupils are dilated too if you cared to check.” Lily blushed and laughed quietly. “We have to get ready now.” James said reluctantly.

“I can’t wait for school to be over.” Lily said.

“That’s very unlike you.” James laughed. “Why would you say that, if I may ask?”

“So that I can do this.” Lily whispered. She got onto her tiptoes and ever so briefly kissed James.

“Oh, you are cruel.” James said and eventually let go off Lily’s hand. She smiled and walked out of the room. James sighed and pulled his pullover over his head.

He was technically already wearing school uniform – having been unable to change into something else the evening before, but he did prefer to wear a new set.

The door suddenly flung open while James was unbuttoning his shirt. Lily ran over to him and jumped into his arms.

“I forgot to tell you something.” Lily grinned.

“What did you forget to tell me?” James asked and returned the smile.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Lily.” James asked and kissed Lily. He made himself stop far too early for his liking and gently put Lily down.

“See you.” Lily called happily and skipped out of the room. James smiled and sighed. “See you.” He did not really have any reason to be sad. They had the rest of their lives together after all.