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Lily has been obsessing over Jane Potter’s lips for hours.
As she sits in Potions, almost letting her cauldron bubble over, she doesn’t understand why she’s so fixated on the fact that Joseph Selwyn knows what Potter’s lips taste like, but she is. Fixated, that is. More than fixated, actually. Damn near obsessed, because apparently, they’re soft and sweet and pliant. Not at all like how she’d imagine Jane Potter would kiss.
At breakfast that morning, she’d overheard Selwyn’s mates teasing him for details on kissing Jane Potter. He’d admitted shyly that Jane tasted like the toffee sweets she was always sucking on between classes. That Jane had been shy, had blushed when they pulled apart.
Lily had spent the rest of the hour before classes stabbing her scrambled eggs on toast, seething over the way Selwyn described Potter. Like he didn’t know her at all. When Potter had asked her to pass the butter only minutes later, Lily adamantly refused to look at her classmate’s lips for fear of seeing them pink and swollen and kissed by a boy who doesn’t seem to know that Jane Potter isn’t sweet.
Jane is brash and cocky and if Lily ever kissed her, she’d expect Jane to rush her with the same intensity she flies with. Utterly confident, angling Lily where she wants her, pressing her up against the castle walls with that lopsided smirk that makes something warm wriggle in Lily’s abdomen. She imagines Jane’s hands on her hips, cradling her face. The insistent press of warm, ravenous lips on hers, Jane’s angular cheekbones against her fuller ones as she nips down the column of Lily’s neck.
If Lily were to kiss Jane, she wouldn’t want Jane to be soft like she’d been with Selwyn. She’d want Jane to be Jane. Impulsive, arrogant and wild, with a passionate streak that Lily had always hated until she suddenly… didn’t.
Now, sitting at her cauldron in Potions, she can’t even concentrate on the lesson going on around her because Jane is laughing with her mates like she hadn’t had a terrible time with Selwyn last night. Like she might have enjoyed Selwyn’s sweet, shy kisses.
It makes Lily utterly miserable.
In an attempt to escape Jane’s laughter, Lily stands abruptly, meandering through the desks to the store cupboard. She needs more boomslang, and she supposes a few more bat claws wouldn’t hurt the longevity of the potion.
She almost locks herself in the cupboard when she hears Jane and Sirius barking at each other. If she doesn’t force the other Gryffindor girl from her mind, poor Joseph Selwyn is almost certainly going to be the unwitting victim of Lily’s temper. Instead, she keeps the door propped open wide as Slughorn always has it during class, choosing to imagine creative ways to jinx Selwyn instead of actually jinxing him.
Lily’s fingers twitch around her wand. They practically itch to shoot off a stray hex. It’s entirely juvenile, and unfair on the Ravenclaw boy, who technically hasn’t done a thing wrong, but she can’t help her irritation.
Sighing, she pinches her nose, desperately needing to calm down.
She focuses on the task at hand. Boomslang, boomslang, boomslang, boomslang. Her eyes lift to the pots lining a shelf far above her head. Taking an inventory of the ingredients lining the shelves, the sounds of the classroom begin to fade as her brain focuses on boomslang and bats wings and a jar of fluxweed that might stabilise the potion’s reaction in the final stages of brewing.
When she reaches up to collect them, she’s forced to stretch, until a long, thin arm extends over her head to reach for the same ingredient.
She startles. Spinning sharply in surprise, she accidentally elbows the person behind in the ribs, hearing a puff of air leave their lungs. Her eyes widen in horror as she watches Jane fall backwards in the small space, careening into shelves full of jars bursting with ingredients and rare potion bottles.
Almost in slow motion, the shelves pour onto the two of them. They yelp “Ohmygod, Jane!” and “Ouch, Evans!” in the same breath.
The smashing of glass summons Slughorn, who rounds the open door to find Jane attempting to scramble up from the floor, with Lily looking down at her, frozen in shock.
“Miss Potter. What in the name of Salazar Slytherin himself are you doing down there?” Slughorn casts a Scourgify on their robes. “You’ll have detention, seeing as your antics have just depleted my supply of spare ingredients.”
Lily doesn’t miss how Slughorn glares at Jane, excusing Lily – his favourite – from blame, even when it’s clear Jane hasn’t just tripped over her own feet and into the shelves. “Professor, it was my fault. Not Jane’s. She just surprised me while I was thinking about the potion.”
Professor Slughorn looks between Jane and Lily with a frown. “Very well, Miss Evans, if you say so. Then both of you shall have detention, sorting the new stock of ingredients I’ve rather fortunately just had delivered to the castle.”
“But Professor,” Lily interjects. “It really wasn’t Jane’s fault at all.”
Lily is determined not to get stuck in detention with Jane Potter and Jane Potter’s lips, because she can’t even stop thinking about them long enough to focus on Potions. And it really is only Lily’s fault – not Jane’s – that Lily is so jumpy and trigger-happy with her elbows this morning.
Of course, Lily might argue that it is partially Selwyn’s fault too, for kissing lips that drive her to distraction and cause her to do irrational things like elbow the owner of said lips in the ribs. She doubts Slughorn would consider that a valid reason to put Selwyn in detention though, so Lily bites her tongue.
Slughorn shakes his head. “I’m afraid Miss Potter and her friends always have something to do with cauldrons exploding in my lessons and ingredients going missing.” Lily sees Jane resisting a small smirk out of the corner of her eye, seemingly not even attempting to look remorseful in the face of Slughorn’s chiding. “Besides, there are crates full of ingredients. You’ll need help to sort them if you don’t want to be in detention for longer than a week.”
Jane finally finds her voice. “It’s okay, Evans. I don’t mind sorting ingredients with you.”
“No!” Lily yelps a little too vehemently. When Jane frowns at her aggressive refusal in confusion, Lily adds, “No, I mean – that wouldn’t be fair on Potter.”
Her stilted excuse seems to offend Jane more than appease her. Lily’s eyes pop wide and apologetic, though she can’t quite put her finger on why the twinge of hurt in Jane’s expression twists her tongue up in knots. How does she explain to the girl that asked her out in fifth year – who Lily publicly rejected in front of the whole school – that she simply cannot be alone with her? How can she make Jane understand that if Lily arrives at the Dungeons this evening, only to find Jane’s thoroughly kissed lips, kissed by someone who isn’t her, Lily doesn’t know how she’ll cope?
Slughorn ignores her protests. “Be here promptly after dinner, you two. Now back to your desks.”
They return to their desks for the rest of the hour, Lily determinedly not looking at Jane as Jane looks rather determinedly at Lily. At the end of class, Jane saunters over, leaning a hip against the desk. Lily rushes to shove her books in her bag, snapping her textbooks shut and clearing her workstation.
Finally, Jane clears her throat. Lily’s eyes flick up.
Though Lily notices Jane’s confused expression and her arms folded angrily across her chest, her eyes lock onto Jane’s unswollen, no more pink than usual, lips. A relieved breath shudders out of her along with an involuntary smile. She’s both incredibly pleased and angered by it, because it means Selwyn didn’t kiss Jane properly.
And Jane Potter is the kind of girl who deserves to be kissed so thoroughly she’s left breathless and panting and wobbly in the knees.
Her internal fuming at Selwyn is interrupted when Jane says, “Evans, are you feeling alright?”
Lily’s voice comes out more of a squeak. “Yes. See you this evening, Jane.” She turns on her heel and marches away, not waiting for a response.
When Lily arrives at Slughorn’s classroom, Jane is already there levitating crates and boxes of various ingredients onto different desks. On the benches are boxes full of empty vials and bottles. Slughorn has apparently left instructions not to cast any spells on the ingredients, to avoid reducing their potency with magical tampering. It means Jane and Lily will have to sort the crates of loose fangs and roots and horns into separate stoppered vials by hand. The task is tedious and far, far too much to allow Jane to help with when it’s Lily’s fault Jane is even here in the first place.
“Potter. This is too much.”
“Precisely why we should get started.” Jane wanders over to pull Lily’s satchel off her shoulder. Lily’s stomach muscles tense as the girl loops two fingers under the strap, and settles it on a chair beside Lily.
“No, Potter, I mean this is too much to ask for you to help with when it was my fault for shoving you,” Lily corrects. “I’m sure you have much better places to be than in detention with me so – I’ll just tell Slughorn I can finish this myself.”
“Places better than a cold, damp dungeon where my partner in crime can’t seem to look at me?” Jane’s grin widens when Lily chokes on a breath. “Never.”
Lily rolls her eyes in an attempt to shrug off Jane’s strangely astute joke. “It's the guilt eating me up inside, Potter.”
Jane scoffs. “Guilt. Sure. Except you’ve been moody with me since breakfast.”
“Not with you,” Lily reassures. “Just moody in general.”
Jane shoves her shoulder with a laugh. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” she replies, and before Jane can stick her tongue out or say Are too!, Lily rushes over to a high tabletop, standing beside it as though she’s about to start brewing. She lifts the lid on a crate of beetle wings, grabbing a handful to filter into a small pot. Screwing the lid on, she starts the process again.
When she hears the pad of Potter’s footsteps against the flagstones to her left, she almost curses under her breath. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you,” Jane says, reaching for the glass vials from her place beside Lily.
“You really don’t need to.”
Jane’s hands don’t still. “But without my help you’ll be here for weeks?”
“That’s fine.” Lily huffs and drops her hands to the desk, turning to look at Jane in frustration. “I’m serious, Potter. You should go.”
“I don’t think Slughorn would look too kindly on my skipping detention.”
“I can explain it wasn’t your fault. I’ll get someone else to help me.”
“Or,” Jane responds, her tone growing sharper, “you could just let me help you out? What is up with you today, Evans?”
Lily spins sharply on her feet, dropping the ingredients she’s holding onto the desk with a loud clattering sound. Her frustration – at the situation, at Selwyn, at Potter’s oblivious helpfulness – simmers to a boil, and she sighs, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Jane glares. “Where the hell else would I have to be?”
“I don’t know.” Lily shrugs. “Elsewhere.”
“Oh, how very specific of you because –”
Lily crosses her arms. Facing Jane, her pulse picks up speed as she steps closer. “I just don’t know why you’re so insistent on sticking around –”
“– that really helps me narrow the list of imaginary places Lily Evans wants me to be –”
“– when you could be with Selwyn right now instead of boring yourself half to death with beetle wings!”
Jane throws her arms wide. “Why in Godric’s name would I want to be with Selwyn right now?!”
They both pant with the effort of talking over each other. Jane looks down her nose at Lily, her breath coming in short puffs just inches away from Lily’s lips.
“You’re dating him, aren't you?”
Jane’s brows furrow. “Wait – what?”
Staring straight into hazel eyes lined with charcoal, Lily lifts her chin higher. “You kissed Selwyn. So I guess you’d rather be with him right now than sorting potions ingredients, alright?”
Jane seems taken aback. “That’s not –” Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, Potter continues, “How did you – how did you know about that?”
“I heard him talking about it at breakfast this morning,” Lily admits.
“Well, perhaps you should have asked me about what happened before being in a snit with me the entire day.” Jane’s cheeks are flushed with anger and though she’s only a few inches taller than Lily, Lily shrinks under her glare.
Lily suddenly feels rather ashamed. It’s not her business. She’s been going about her day seething at Selwyn and Jane and any unfortunate first year who has had the misfortune of getting in her path, but she’s no more entitled to details of Jane’s love life than the next person. Not since rejecting her advances in fifth year.
Jane’s gaze flicks between her eyes and her lips. “Ask me about Selwyn, Evans.”
“No.” Lily shakes her head, wincing. “No, it's really – it’s fine.”
Delicately, Jane moves an inch closer, her eyes softening. She must see the distress plain on Lily’s face because she whispers, “What did he say that made you think I’d be with him tonight, Lily?”
“Nothing.”
Jane raises an eyebrow.
“He said you kissed. That your kisses were soft and sweet, and admittedly, it didn’t sound like what I’d imagine you kiss like, but soft and sweet kisses are serious. They’re for when you like someone.”
“Oh?” Jane’s lips curve into a smile Lily doesn’t understand.
Lily ignores Potter’s growing smirk in favour of staring at her shoes. “So, obviously, I wouldn’t want to keep you here when Selwyn is probably waiting in the corridors for your stupidly sweet kisses.”
She sounds horribly jealous even to her own ears, but she wants Jane to leave her to her wallowing already.
“Wait, sorry,” Jane waves a hand in front of her face, her eyes sparkling. “You have an opinion on what I’d kiss like? You’ve thought about it?”
Hot pricks of embarrassment crawl over her cheeks. “Well, I’m rather opinionated on a lot of things, Jane.”
She doesn’t care if she sounds snotty. The hot look Jane is giving her is making her fidget.
“I know.” Jane smiles. “You know how much I like it when you’re opinionated, right?” Reaching up to fix Lily’s tie, her eyes glint again when Lily swallows a nervous laugh. Slowly, like a predator, Jane corners her. “So tell me, Evans. What’s so offensive about me kissing Selwyn?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Lily gulps.
“I’m not convinced.”
“I’m not sure I care whether or not you’re convinced,” Lily says, lifting her chin.
“Come on, Lily,” Jane goads. “What’s so wrong about me kissing Selwyn all soft and sweet?”
Lily wants to yell at Jane; tell her that Selwyn’s all wrong for her because he’s not Lily. But given she’s shot down Jane’s every attempt at flirting with her, Lily doesn’t think she has any grounds to be annoyed.
Instead, she replies quietly, almost derisively, “You are so far from soft and sweet, Potter.”
With a light tug on Lily’s tie, Jane draws Lily forward another half an inch. “Maybe I am with Selwyn?”
Jane’s nose brushes the tip of Lily’s. Their breath mingles. Wide-eyed, Lily’s throat bobs as she whispers, “Lucky him.”
Moving closer, tilting her head to the side, Jane’s lips ghost over Lily’s mouth. In a teasing lilt, Jane murmurs, “You want me to kiss you soft and sweet, Lily?”
Lily blinks.
One second longer and the slow reel of thread pulling them closer to each other disappears as they slam together.
And suddenly Jane pulls her forward as Lily’s arms swing around Jane’s neck, their lips colliding much like Lily’s heartbeats. Pushing up onto her toes, Lily presses against Jane’s mouth. Jane’s arms wrap around her waist, squeezing her close, a soft moan escaping Jane’s throat when Lily pulls at the back of her neck to keep Jane pressed tight against her.
In one swift move, Jane has her pressed against the brewing table, palms on Lily’s cheeks, fingers threading into her hair. The sheer momentum of the kiss – of Jane – throws Lily entirely off balance.
Lily’s fingertips dance along Jane’s neck, letting the taller girl lead, opening her mouth at the press of Jane’s tongue. One of Potter’s hands drifts up to hold her face, tilting her jaw. Lily’s skin is hot. Jane doesn’t relent, just like Lily knew she wouldn’t.
Jane’s kisses aren’t soft. They’re hungry and hot and desperate.
Lily’s skin burns. Something coils tight inside her.
Jane’s hands are soft against her lower back and when Lily arches into her, Jane breaks off for air. “Since when were you interested in girls, Evans?”
“Since when were you interested in boys?”
“Could – you – answer – the – bloody – question – please?” Jane responds, punctuating each word with a kiss to a different part of Lily’s face; her jaw, her lips, her chin, and back to her lips.
“I never said I wasn’t interested in girls,” Lily protests
“Fine,” Jane huffs dramatically. “You made it clear that you weren’t interested in me in particular then.”
“In fifth year, Jane.”
“Don’t Jane me.”
Lily laughs. Jane shuts her up with rough lips on Lily’s neck, one hand tracing up her spine to tangle in Lily’s hair. She presses kisses to the corner of Lily’s mouth and Lily finds herself smiling as her eyes flutter closed. Jane’s hand slithers up her ribs and she gasps for air.
The kiss deepens and Jane’s hand comes up to graze her cheek, a fingertip brushing softly against Lily’s cheekbone.
The kiss is relentless. Hot. Giddy. Effervescent.
Its ability to bowl her over takes her by surprise because Lily had expected the shy delicate girl Selwyn had described. Instead, the girl in front of her makes Lily feel entirely out of her depth. Jane Potter simply cannot be the same girl who kissed Selwyn last night.
Their lips linger together a moment longer before Lily draws back.
“You kissed me.”
Jane doesn’t respond. She brushes the mussed dark curls of her fringe out of her face before staring patiently at Lily, lips bee-stung and red in a way that makes Lily happy to have done what Selwyn didn’t. She’d kissed Jane Potter properly.
But the dishevelled state of Jane’s bun and her puffy mouth only makes her remember the absence of such marks in Potions this morning, after her soft, romantic kiss with Joseph.
It makes her nauseous to think that Jane had kissed Lily so fervently, because only soft kisses are serious. Wild, unruly kisses that make Lily flounder under the intensity of Jane’s lips over hers are decidedly not.
When Jane finally nods, Lily frowns. “You kissed me this evening but you kissed Selwyn yesterday.”
Jane purses her lips. “Selwyn kissed me yesterday. And it was more of a peck.”
Lily pats down her hair and her crumpled robes. She isn’t sure how Jane repeating the statement clarifies the situation at all.
Pain ripples through her chest down into her stomach as she stands there frozen, while Jane smiles at her as though everything should suddenly make sense. But Selwyn and Jane had still kissed. As had Lily and Jane. And still, nothing is obvious about the smile playing on Jane’s lips.
Lily blinks several times, inhales deeply and wishes she’d told Jane to sod off with Selwyn before she’d given Jane a chance to mess with her head. Her cheeks burn and she presses shaky fingertips against them, in an attempt to hide the flustered, angry flush blooming on her cheeks.
“Are you alright?” Jane murmurs. Lily’s stomach knots.
“Jane –” she blurts without thinking. “I could be a better boyfriend than him. I could kiss you properly, for one. I could kiss you for hours if that’s what you wanted.”
“Lily, I think you’re –”
“And I know I turned you down all those times,” she says, cutting Jane off before she’s forced to hear her call Lily delusional or mistaken about just how good that kiss was. “But the thought of you liking anyone else quite literally makes my skin crawl, so please, don’t kiss Selwyn sweetly. Don’t kiss him at all.”
She squares her shoulders and looks at Jane’s mouth dropped open, her jaw slack with surprise. “It’s just that I like you, Potter. I’ve had feelings for you for a while and – it’s silly, I know – but I can’t only kiss you, Jane. I can’t –” Her words catch as she clears her throat hurriedly.
Lily suddenly feels the cold of the Dungeons. A lump swells up in her throat seeing Jane’s brows furrow.
“You don’t need to say anything, of course, I just wanted to explain why I can’t do these detentions with you if you’re with him. Being alone, here, with you…” Lily trails off, giving a deep sigh. “I never would have left you alone with me if I were him.”
Jane stares at her as though Lily’s just walloped her over the head with one of the storage cupboard cauldrons. “Why’s that?”
Lily makes a frustrated sound and levels a glare at Jane. “Because I want to steal you from him… Obviously.”
“Evans,” Jane says slowly, “you must be the densest smart person I know. What about me kissing you like that made you think I’m at all interested in anyone else?”
Lily opens her mouth several times to speak, but the sound never comes.
“When I said it was a peck, and that he kissed me, I meant that I certainly didn’t reciprocate with any of the enthusiasm I kissed you with a few moments ago, alright?” Jane sighs exhaustedly. “It was a study date and I planned to let him down easy because – because he wasn’t you.” She looks as though she’s only just resisting tacking a ‘you unbearable pillock’ onto the end of that statement.
“Me?” Lily says, shocked.
Jane chuckles. “Merlin’s sake. I never kissed Selwyn ‘softly and sweetly’. I just didn’t really kiss him back at all, because I don’t like him. And, for the record, I don’t, as a general rule, kiss anyone ‘soft and sweet’.” Jane’s cheeks turn pink. “But for you, Lily, I might be convinced. I’ve heard they’re what you do when you like a girl, you see.”
Lily doesn’t appreciate Jane’s teasing after the emotional turmoil Jane’s kisses have caused her, but she plays along nonetheless. “Only when you’re completely serious about her though,” Lily warns, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. “You can’t just go any kiss anyone all patient and wholesome like that.”
Jane steps forward, catching hold of Lily’s shoulders and pulling her head upwards so that their faces are nearly touching. “Oh, I would never.”
Their lips barely touch, brushing against each other. Sparks of electricity jump from the pressure of Jane’s hands on Lily’s waist again. She melts into Jane with a moan. Jane pulls her closer, her lips coaxing and seductive and slow.
It’s more tentative than the first kiss. Lingering and warm, Jane’s fingers nestle at the dip of Lily’s cheekbone as she continues in a whisper, “If I ever were to kiss a girl softly, I’d make sure it meant I liked her an awful lot.”
Dipping her head again and closing the final few centimetres between their lips, Jane kisses Lily.
Softly.