Chapter Text
Though Lily was hesitant to touch the door for fear that James’ lunacy was contagious, she knocked quickly three times. “POTTER! I AM TRYING TO GET SOME WORK DONE!” She had known since move-in day that her neighbors were trouble and now it was November and she couldn’t stand it anymore.
On that fateful day back at the start of September, the building was flooded with freshmen and their parents, carrying box after box up the four flights of stairs. While in Lily’s case, those boxes contained books and fuzzy pillows, her neighbors had packed an entirely different array of things. James and his daft roommate Sirius bounded energetically up the stairs carrying huge speakers and massive screens and overly complicated gaming chairs. Lily’s dad had taken one look at their ridiculous speaker system and laughed that Lily was in for an interesting year.
It was currently 4 o’something on a brisk November afternoon and Lily had a massive analysis on the movie adaptation of King Lear in a mere eight hours. This wasn’t the problem; Lily loved King Lear. The problem was stupid Potter and his stupid rock music and his goddamn base thumping speakers. It was hard to write a paper when you couldn’t hear your own thoughts. It was even harder to write one when your laptop screen vibrated with every wub-wub-WUB of the bass.
Of course he wasn’t answering the door. How could he possibly hear her?
“JAMES POTTER!” Lily pounded with both fists.
He heard that. The door opened and the music got impossibly louder. Now the noise was rattling Lily’s brain loose and James Potter’s tight t-shirt clad chest was level with her eyes.
He gave her an easy smile. “Hey, Lily.” She couldn’t hear him, but she was pretty good at lip reading her own name.
She raised her eyebrows, pointed to her ears, and gave some kind of spazzed jazz hands gesture, but thankfully he understood what she meant.
“Too loud?” He asked (or mouthed – she wouldn’t know the difference), smiling again. How dare he smile, the mocking asshole. Of freaking course it’s too loud.
She gave him her best glare. Suddenly the song ended and she took the brief moment of silence to start in on him – “Potter you are the most inconsid-“
If you change your mind, I’m the first in line. Honey, I’m still free.
Take a chance on me.
Lily squealed and shoved past him into the room. “OHMYGOD I LOVE ABBA!” she screamed over the music.
James’ mocking smile turned instantly genuine. “Really?” He turned and walked into the room to turn down the music.
“Oh now you turn down the music. The one good song you’ve played since you moved in.”
“Anything to please a fellow ABBA fan. I love ABBA. Got all their albums on vinyl. Look, I’ve even got their tour DVDs. I watch them when Sirius isn’t here sometimes. He won’t let me play ABBA. Says people will hate us.”
“Trust me, you don’t need ABBA to make people hate you.”
“How could you possibly hate me, Lily?” He sat in one of the ridiculous gaming chairs. “This is the first we’ve spoken.” Just then, his eyes lit up so suddenly that Lily’s breath caught. “You’ve got to see this!” He reached over to the TV stand beside him and pulled out a DVD. “This is the tour where Fältskog and Lyngstad wore those bizarre but awesome blue and purple jumpsuits. And this” he pulled out another disk “is ABBA: The Movie, which they played at all the US concert locations after–”
“–After the concerts on their final tour, I know.” Lily couldn’t help but compare James to a little kid. His black hair was a mess, he was in sweatpants with bare feet, and he was acting just like her little cousins did when they showed her their favorite action figures.
James’ crinkled at the realization that he had met another true ABBA fan. “Have a seat, Lily.”
Though she was sure she didn’t tell her feet to walk to the other weird game chair, somehow she ended up there. And somehow after that, she ended up watching an hour long concert followed by a 45 minute exclusive interview. And somehow during that time, her gamer chair had found it’s way right up next to James’. And after that she had somehow see James’ limited edition ABBA socks and drank Mountain Dew out of a vintage ABBA thermos. Somehow she thought James ordered pizza just as an excuse to have to get paper plates down from a shelf where he would casually come across said ABBA thermos that had somehow gotten up there, when in reality James held the thing like it was a priceless china and had clearly been waiting for someone worthy of showing it to.
“Well Lily, I’d love to watch another concert but I said I’d meet Sirius at the gym at 8:30.”
“8:30? What on earth time is it?” Lily panicked, reaching for her phone. It read 8:17. “Shit! I have a paper to write!”