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Lily must have been dreaming. Yes, that was it, she was having some completely absurd and slightly too realistic nightmare about her Potions class and she was going to wake up any second. That was the only explanation— well, the only explanation she could bear . The only other possible reason that she could consider was that she had done it wrong, but Slughorn was informing her that she had done it right, so it had to be a dream. There was no other logical reason she was smelling James Potter in her Amortentia. What was more alarming to her was not the fact that her potion smelled of him, but that she could identify it as him. His stupid floral-scented hair products, the faint notes of wood from his broom, and the mint toothpaste he used. Lily hated it all and the fact that she could feel the heat rise to her cheeks as she stared aghast at her cauldron was not helping in the slightest.
“You alright, Lils?” Mary whispered from the other side of her bench, face screwed up in concern. Slughorn had moved on, attention redirected away from her, but she was still reeling. She appreciated Mary’s attempt to not make a scene, but apparently Lily’s face made it so painfully obvious that it was a fairly fruitless effort. Lily cleared her throat, blinking once slowly before turning to her friend.
“Yeah, fine.”
“You sure Lily? You’re looking a little flushed,” Marlene added, leaning over her bench to peer at the redhead in front of her.
“Just a little startled, that’s all. Wasn’t expecting Slughorn to get so excited.” It wasn’t a complete lie, she was startled, just not by their professor.
“But he compliments you all the time. You are quite literally his favorite student.” Marlene was narrowing her eyes and Lily knew she didn’t have much time before the other girl figured it out.
“Amortentia is a very complicated potion though, I wasn’t positive I had gotten it right. Speaking of which,” Lily said, redirecting the conversation, “how’s yours going, Marls?” The other girl shrugged, glancing at her pot before shivering.
“Complete bust.” Mary gave her a sad smile.
“Don’t worry about it Marlene, mine didn’t turn out quite right either,” the curly haired girl said, covering the lid of her cauldron before sliding down the bench next to Lily. Marlene had come around too, sandwiching the redhead between the two as the trio peered into the pink potion.
“Moment of truth, I suppose.” Marlene was smiling, but Lily could tell she was nervous, her voice tense and lacking its usual spunk.
“Oh please,” Mary said, rolling her eyes, “we all know who you’ll smell, Marls.” Marlene’s face flushed bright red and Lily had to bring a hand to her mouth to quiet her laughter. It was a bit of an ongoing joke between the three that Marlene was the “James” of their group, falling hard and fast for Dorcas Meadows, a Gryffindor girl in the year below them. Marlene had convinced herself that their relationship was purely platonic, but Lily and Mary knew better. Dorcas flirted with the blonde nearly every chance she got, Marlene was just too oblivious to notice it.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, Marls.” Lily added, only for her friend to stick her tongue out at the pair. “Who’s going first?”
“Thought we all agreed on Lover Girl?” Mary said, nodding to Marlene who rolled her eyes and leaned over the pot. One of the many things that constantly amazed Lily about magic was how fast it worked. No matter how many times she read about a smell or the effects a potion could have on the human body, seeing it at work in real time, it was like the first time she found out she was a witch. She was constantly in a state of awe and frankly she didn’t mind.
In her textbook it said that Amortentia went to work as soon as it reached the olfactory bulbs of the user, relaxing the body and creating the illusion of comfort in the form of attractive smells. Those smells were more often than not connected to a person, thus bringing forward memories of that person, the brain connecting all the senses together to create attraction. The neuroscience behind it was fascinating, albeit a little terrifying, but seeing how Marlene’s shoulders dropped immediately and hearing the small sigh that escaped her mouth, nearly made Lily’s jaw drop. Surely she hadn’t looked like that when she smelled James, right?
“Well?” Mary prodded, waking Marlene from her temporary reverie.
“I’m bloody whipped .” Lily and Mary cackled at the statement, their friend’s bluntness both surprising and amusing them. For once, Marlene didn’t have a quick remark, instead smiling dopily at them. Lily thought it was cute how unbashful she was being. “Alright Macdonald, your turn.” Mary was smiling, nudging Lily over slightly to reach the brew. The redhead noted that the dark skinned girl reacted to the potion a bit differently. Her body seemed to relieve itself of tension, but not to the same effect as Marlene’s. It wasn’t a deep, all encompassing experience, but seemed more like Mary had smelled a bit of lavender.
“It’s nice,” was all she said, pulling her head away with a small smile. She was still down to earth, present in the room, unlike how Marlene had been originally. Is it stronger if you have feelings for the person? Lily wondered, but didn’t get long to meditate on it before Mary and Marlene pressed their hands into her back, shoving her in front of the cauldron. Lily barely caught herself on the lip of the counter, nearly face planting straight into the potion. She hadn’t even been standing that far away, only moving a few steps back so Mary could have a turn. Yet, here she was, inches away from a sea of pink that reeked of James bloody Potter. She hated the way that her eyes fluttered closed almost immediately, how her shoulders dropped and how the fingers that had been fiercely gripping the stone counter a minute ago were limp, resting against the concrete. Logically, she knew she should pull away, the potion making her brain dizzy with the scent of the loud-mouthed pureblood, but her body refused to move, rooting itself in the floorboards. For once in her life, Lily ignored her brain and let herself go, just for a moment.
…
The first time Lily had met James she had nearly broken his nose. They were eleven, boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that magic was real and something she could do , only comforted from the overwhelming newness of it all by the fact that Severus was there with her. Which is why when James and Sirius came parading down the train car, promptly throwing insults towards the Slytherin boy before Lily could even introduce herself, the redhead balled her fists at her sides, deciding that fighting before school even started would be a bad idea, storming off and taking Severus with her. Looking back on it now, she still wasn’t sorry about any of the things she had said in her moment of rage. They were true and she had meant every word of it. She did, however, wish that she hadn’t stuck by Severus’ side for so long, making up excuses for him, justifying his means to herself at night, like counting demented sheep, wishing on stars for miracles disguised as nightmares. By the time she had dropped him, putting up walls that he could never knock down, she wished she had spent more time with the people she was now proud to call her best friends instead of him.
It did not change the fact that James Potter is a bully— or was a bully? Lily would be lying if she said he hadn’t matured over the years. Sure, he was still a prankster, but he was the captain of the Quidditch team and Lily had never seen anyone outside of the professors so respected by their peers. She went to the games and occasionally accompanied Remus in the stands during practice, waiting for James and Sirius to finish. Lily didn’t know much about Quidditch, but she did know that the messy-haired boy knew how to fly. Not only that, but even she could admit that he was beyond amazing at tactics, running through nearly all possible plays when approaching an opponent, hearing his game plans many a time as he paced around the common room late at night. He also always seemed to know when to push and when to step back, at least on the pitch. Then again, she had seen him around his friends, ever the mother hen.
When Lily found out about Remus’ condition, Sirius, surprisingly, was not the first person to threaten her. It was James. He had approached her one evening after dinner, only having found out earlier that day, asking to speak to her in private for a moment. They had found a secluded corridor, Lily nervously wondering if this was another confession from the bespeckled boy. Instead, his usual lopsided grin was replaced with a tight-lipped expression, eyes going steely.
“Listen,” he began, voice deep and stern in a way Lily had never heard. “I know Remus told you because he trusts you and because you probably already figured it out.” Lily opened her mouth to interject but James held up a single finger, stopping her. “And I trust that I don’t need to tell you about how kind or gentle he is. You’re just as much his friend as I am. He might be quick with his words, but he very rarely resorts to physical violence. When we first found out, back in third year, do you want to know the first thing he said to us?” James phrased it as a question but didn’t wait for Lily to reply, looking her dead in the eyes. “He said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you, not when I’m like this.’ Sirius had laughed. I mean, it was Remus we were talking about. How on earth could he be dangerous?” He paused for a moment, eyes softening slightly. “It takes so much out of him, Lily, so much. And yet he keeps his spirits up, Merlin knows how. We try our best, you know, to make sure he’s alright and we’ve had it under control for this long, so while I’m sure you want to help, it’s best to just stay out of it.” Lily assumed that the ‘we’ in this situation were the rest of the Marauders, although she could hardly see how a bunch of teenagers could help Remus with his condition. “I’m not going to police Moony on who he can and can’t share his secret with, that’s not my place. But I swear to Merlin , Evans, if you so much as lay a finger on him I will not hesitate to pull my wand. Are we clear?” James Potter, the boy who doesn’t stop fidgeting hadn’t moved an inch the whole conversation.
“Crystal,” Lily barely squeaked out, James giving her one more once-over before relaxing his posture.
“Shall we head back then?” He offered her his hand, but she declined, stepping next to him instead. James shook it off, letting his palm hit the side of his pants as they fell into stride. Right before they reached the door to the Great Hall, Lily stopped, turning to face James fully. He looked at her quizzically.
“Just so you know, I would never hurt Remus, not intentionally. He is my friend too, you know.” James nodded slowly, clearly thinking over his next words very carefully.
“I understand that, but Remus is like a brother to me. And you do not mess with my family.” With that, he had gone in, leaving Lily standing in the corridor.
There were other times though, times where James wasn’t the infamously immature prankster or the revered Quidditch captain or protective of his friends. There were times where James was frantically running around, worry painted clear as day on his face over the smallest things. She still remembered the first time Peter had caught the flu at school, James practically tripping over himself trying to get to the kitchen to bring him soup. Or when Remus was let go from the hospital wing sooner than James thought he should be, helping the battered boy up the steps to their shared dorm, cooing reassurances into his ear. There were times when James was raging, when anger bubbled up to the surface and he had to excuse himself so he could go kick a wall. She remembered the one time she had walked in on one of his fits, something about Sirius’ family being their usual prattish selves that had sent him over the edge, punching the brick out in the courtyard.
“Oi, Potter! What do you think you’re doing?” She had run over, blood on his knuckles glinting in the setting sunlight causing alarm bells to go off in her head. He ignored her with a grunt, fist meeting the brick with a sickening crack. Lily suspected he had broken something. By the time she had reached him, his face was red, hair damp with sweat, tear streaks apparent on his cheeks. She had to restrain him by his elbows, struggling against her smaller form for a moment before sagging and giving in. “What the actual fuck James?”
“Don’t Evans, just— don’t.” He still wasn’t looking at her, staring at his shoes instead. Lily wasn’t sure how long they stood there in silence, but she didn’t let go the whole time, too afraid of what James might do if she did. It was only once the sun had dipped completely below the horizon that he turned around, facing her. “I’m sorry.” She quirked a brow at him. “I don’t usually— I’m not, er, I’m not normally like this.” He went to fidget with his hands before noticing the state of his knuckles, opting instead to toe the ground. “I usually go fly my broom to blow off steam, ya know, something physical. But that wasn’t cutting it, and I wasn’t thinking, and, um, I’m sorry.”
“You know, I’m not sure why you’re apologizing.” Lily said, hands on her hips.
“For scaring you?” James said, not meeting her eyes. Lily sighed, turning on her heel.
“Let’s get you to Madam Pomfrey, yeah?”
…
“Something catch your fancy, Lils?” Marlene’s voice was a bucket of cold water, eyes shooting open all but tumbling backwards as she pushed herself away from the potion.
“Strong stuff,” Lily mumbled, running a hand through her hair, heart beating erratically, brain scrambling to make sense of the typhoon of memories flooding through her system. Everything was coming up, the good, the bad, the mediocre, the hurtful, the comforting, each and everyone centered around James Potter. The way he would glare at anyone who was giving his friends a hard time, how he would patiently help Peter with homework, explaining a problem over and over again for hours on end. The way he gave her space when she asked him too, settling for the tentative friendship that had begun to form. The way he still wrote to his parents once a week, how he would eagerly await their letter every Monday.
“So Evans, did you smell the man of your dreams?” Sirius’ voice quipped in, the Marauders having circled around her bench while her mind had wandered.
James Potter was arrogant, loudmouthed, and straight-up obnoxious at times, everything Lily shouldn’t be attracted to. There was a reason Lily had ignored him for as long as she could in first year. He was also, however, a kind person, who cared dearly about his family and friends, was loyal beyond belief and sometimes a bit overprotective. He was loving, giving his all for anything and everything, whether it was a sport, an essay, or a person. James Fleamount Potter was a mix of black and white, forming a whirlwind of gray that laid Lily bare, vulnerable and afraid to care so dearly for a single person. James Potter was a cacophony of things, but most of all he was human
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Black.” She found the words falling easily off her tongue, a smile sneaking its way across her lips. Maybe, if this was indeed a dream, it wasn’t a nightmare after all.