Chapter Text
Lily Evans did not like James Potter. She quite frankly didn’t like him one bit. Ever since the day they got introduced, she was constantly finding things about James that made her immensely annoyed. She remembered a mere week before this unfortunate coffee study session, to which she was dragging her feet on that cold afternoon, she was annoyed at how he was breathing, which in here defense was extremely loud and rightfully distracting for the quite place they were at.
It had been a mere 3 months since they had met at Marlene’s birthday party back in October, her and Moony had joined their little friend group since Marlene insisted they would fit in well. Sirius was fun, Lily enjoyed getting a tease with him every once in a while, and she definitely enjoyed the fact that Remus was so clearly smitten by him, and Mary was one of those people whom Lily found an instant connection with.
Lily and Marlene had been friends for ages, having gone to school together with Remus, she had found it rather hard to meet with her throughout their first year, resulting in them gathering less and less. Marlene wanted to try the dorm life and that was not something that either Lily or Remus particularly were keen on, that and the fact that Marlene was an art major and Lily doing biology did not help them having any classes in common, or for that matter any buildings in common.
First year had been hard for all of them, but at the beginning of second year, Lily brought it upon herself to spend more time with her old friend which included hanging out with her other friends – Sirius, Mary, and unfortunately James. The first time Lily saw James, he was rather drunk and perched on a coffee table, yelling the lyrics of clearly the wrong song. Everyone at the party had seemed to find the sight extremely funny, but to Lily it was just plain embarrassment and actually a horrible way to butcher a perfectly good song.
A week prior to the dreaded study session that Lily was expecting James to be late to, they had gone to an art gallery, in hopes to help Sirius and Marlene get some decent notes for a class. James was running late, and he came bursting through the doors of the tiny gallery all sweaty and breathing heavier and louder than Darth fucking Vader. He had laughed it off with Sirius, but Lily just gave them a small smile and tried her best not to lecture him on the beauty of time management, a discussion she was sure James would have enjoyed given the fact that the boy seemed to light up every time Lily so much as glanced at him. That was also making her not like him very much. He clearly liked her and made sure everyone in their friend group or even outside of it, knew that fact. James was loud and very much ignorant to the fact that there are other people around him, but Lily could see how much he cared for his closest friends.
James was a mystery to her, boys like him were never the type to go for one girl and not date around, hooking up with literally anyone who so much as made them smile. That was the first thing Lily found interesting about him, the second was that he had done everything for his best friend Sirius and were the reason James’s parents had taken him in.
The enigma that was James Potter made Lily think about him way more than she should, than she wanted. As much as he was annoying and loud, he had the heart and smile to counteract that.
The crisp January air made Lily tighten the scarf, stuffing her gloved hands into the deep gray coat’s pockets. Taking a corner, she finally spotted the Costa Coffee where she was meeting James. Pushing the door open, Lily was greeted by the rich smell of coffee, the steam from the screeching coffee makers making the tiny place nice and warm. Taking a look around, Lily was almost startled to find James sitting on a small table at the back of the shop, a bright smile splattered across his face.
“Oi Evans,” he waved at her, the sleeve of his red sweater falling to his elbow to reveal the brown skin of his forearm.
Lily rolled her eyes and started unwrapping her scarf as she walked over to the table, the soft burgundy interior making her feel cozy and welcomed. If it weren’t for the fact that James was there. She felt a rush of blood go up to her cheeks as she watched the way James took off his glasses and absentmindedly wiped the fog off them. A feeling she was not entirely sure where it came from.
“You ordered already?” Lily asked, pushing the cushioned chair back and sliding onto it.
“I was waiting for you actually,” James stood up, “What would you like?”
***
Time can be a curios matter. More peculiar if measured by interactions with others. The thought of someone changing your whole life seemed rather odd for Lily, you did not just wake up one day with a filter over the world and simply see everything in a new light. The way she had seen time change her, was with the actual interactions, or rather an increase of interactions with people. Some people were good for your time, some bad. Some people cherished every single second they spend with you, forgetting that time exist all together. Tossing their phone aside for hours on end, with not a single care what they might be missing, the messages, phone calls or simply the lost hours spent scrolling aimlessly for a gram of happiness that a random post may give you. The quality of time that you spend with another human being is what Lily cherished most.
She had to admit, James Potter was not entirely the exact person whom Lily believed would make her value each passing second, each shared grin or a simple careless touch, but it did. The tint over the whole world that she had been promised, however, did not happen. The world was as dull and grey as it ever was, but those seconds, minutes, hours Lily found herself in the presence of one James Potter seemed to trickle by faster than she had wanted to, in the hopes she can simply bottle them up. Put a nice little seal on them and stuff them in the incubator at lab. Let them cook there, nice and slow, blossom into something new, something that the outside world will never see, something that was only for the eyes of the very few that have been given access to the sacred lab that was Lily Evans’s close circle.
Love came very natural to Lily, almost too natural. But with that kind of overpowering love, there was also a domain with very harsh thoughts and hatred. Emotions being heightened did not simply come for one domain only, and Lily did not like that about herself. The mere thought that she could despise something with lengths that she had seen herself do, was scary, hateful in its own way. But such emotions, as powerful as they may be, did not infiltrate as often as her love. In the rare occasions that you would be the unfortunate witness of the wrath that reeks from Lily Evans might as well be the last thing you see. It’s not in the actions or words, it’s simply in the gaze she could chill people to the bone with. A gaze she was certain James had seen on a fare few occasions in the mere months they have been in each other’s presence. But as much as she thought she had him all figured out, the more he seemed to suspire her.
That dreaded study meet-up had turned into quite the turning point for Lily’s outlook on her judgement. Yes, James was loud, yes he was annoyingly loud. But the heart that he wore on his sleeve was, well, heart melting to say the least. It had been three weeks since that day. Three weeks in which she found herself laughing at the jokes she used to roll her eyes at, smiling every time she saw James running around campus being late to yet another class or a meeting.
James Potter loved as passionately as Lily did, and maybe she saw herself in him, maybe she did not, but the truth was she feared that overpowering affection. It made her think that there were some great, enormous expectations that came with knowing someone was so deeply found of you, way more than a simple “I like spending time with you”. It was true that she had found it extremely annoying and rather odd, the way James had seemed to only have eyes for her in only a week that they have known one another, but now that she knew him, knew knew him, she was scared. She did not want to take that affection, that carrying for granted, but she also did not want to be swept away in the guilt of being the one that James Potter obviously like and give him what he wanted even though she herself did not know if in fact that was, also, what she wanted.
Confusion was a dangerous game. In the few weeks that they had spent laughing over chemistry equations, sharing notes and stories, she had started to grow affectionate towards the dark-haired boy. A few quirky remarks from Sirius about her giving in to the Potter charm, had her staying up all night thinking about it. That is how she found herself sitting on the floor, 3 am in Moony’s room, head resting on the bed frame.
“And I don’t know if I actually like him or I just want him to feel less sad that I keep rejecting him,” Lily dug her fingernails into her scalp, red curls drooping over her face.
Remus rubbed his eyes and slid the duvet to the side. He had woken up by Lily’s soft knock and had listened to her talk with his eyes closed. Sliding off the bed and sitting next to Lily, he took her hands away from her head and held them tightly. “I told you this yesterday, and I’ll say it once more, it was unfair of him put you in that position. But from what I see, I think you like him.”
They had talked about the issue a fair few times, and they always reached the same conclusion, a conclusion Lily did not feel too comfortable with.
“How do I go from hating his guts to actually liking him, he is never going to believe this,” Lily looked at Remus, the slight shimmer of tears in her eyes.
“People change Lil, look at me and Sirius,” Remus squeezed her hands, “I went from not being able to say a word, to snogging him in the halls.”
Lily gave out a huffed laugh, “That is called a character development, my literature mate.”
“Maybe you were just hiding the fact that you fancy him with the ice cold looks you were giving him,” Remus shifted his legs and stretched them on the carpet before him.
“Oh, trust me, I definitely did not,” Lily reassured him. And to the best of her knowledge, it was in fact true.
The ice surrounding James’s name in Lily’s mind had not melted the day of the study meet-up, it was a slow process over the past few weeks. The first big crack was how his face lit up every time his mum called, him promising he will be over for tea during the weekend. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about her, and his dad. James was extremely sweet when he wanted to be. Lily knew already that he was on the football team, but she did not know that he had switched programs just this year. Marlene had told her that James was doing some sports degree, but she had just learned that he had switched over to being the captain of the football club and doing a Biomedical engineering program because he had gone to the hospital where his mum worked and was rather intrigued by how all the “fancy machines” worked. A switch no one was more excited about than his mother.
“You don’t have to marry him you know,” Remus bumped their shoulders together.
“I know, I just-,” Lily rested her head on his shoulder, “-I don’t know anything to be honest.”
“But you don’t have to know Lil,” Remus let go of her hands to wrap his arm around her shoulders, “Just take it one day at a time and see how you feel. Don’t pressure yourself to like him and just see where things naturally go.”
Lily lifted her head to meet his gaze, his face barely visible in the dark night, “Sirius has turned you into quite the love expert.”
“I always was, I just like keeping him around,” Remus smiled.
“Yeah, okey. It’s not like you go into a full panic the second he comes within a 10-meter radius.”
“Okey now, we are talking about your love life not mine.” Remus frowned.
They stayed quiet for a while, before Lily broke the silence, “Would you mind if James and I join your baking date with Sirius?”
“I would actually love that, Sirius is an awful baker, it took us hours before we got to eat the biscuits last time.”
“I don’t think you are blameless Mr. snogging-my-crush-all-over-our-flat.”
Remus reached over to his bed and threw a pillow at Lily.
“Deserved that,” she admitted.
“Yes, you most definitely did,” Remus smiled and blushed a little at the memory of Lily finding him and Sirius tangled up on the sofa after they had left his room in the attempt to actually try the biscuits, which were more than cool at that point.
“I will ask Sirius to bring James over with him tomorrow,” Remus said, and he heard Lily take a long shaky breath.
Lily was not anxious; she was just confused, and she did not want to project her confusion onto James. In fact, she was looking forward to all of them meeting because just the sight of James made her feel a certain type of way. And just by that realization, she thought she had it all figured out. It was not that she was scared of liking James because of her being pressured into doing so, she was scared of liking him because she might like him way more than she may realise.
“I think I might actually fancy James Potter, funny how things always end up changing,” she admitted and huffed out another shaky breath.