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There she was again.
Dressed in another mini-skirted two-piece and with her high heels clacking on the tiled floor as she stomped past his office, a stack of folders held in hands with perfectly manicured fingernails, and a disdainful glance at him through his open door. Unmistakeable, from her fiery red hair and long legs, to the sound of her footsteps and the sultry perfume that trailed after her.
Lily Evans.
A name so sweet and delicate — so unlike the bitterness that she kept harboured specially for him. A name that reminded him of the first time he saw her in the break room, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and sharing a laugh over a plastic cup with that greasy idiot, Snape.
He’d gone to introduce himself — and her eyes had narrowed into slits before she granted him a stiff greeting between pursed lips and turned to her companion again.
James had not been used to making a bad first impression, especially not to ladies. His unkempt hair and sleeves rumpled around his forearms, an unprofessional look on anyone else, added an air of levity to his meticulous professionalism that few people dared criticise and even fewer managed to find fault with — Lily Evans chief among them.
It didn’t help that she was fucking brilliant — smart, driven, knowledgeable, with attention to detail that rivalled his. He would love working with her if she would offer her input as a suggestion for improvement; but instead, she threw it as an accusation, dressed it with thinly veiled insults and hateful looks that only those gorgeously expressive green eyes could make so withering.
And yet, he was so attracted to her even as she loathed him, that he was sure he would lose his head if she were to actually engage him in civil conversation. Her bite was the only thing holding him back from making a move — that and his professionalism, though he would chuck that out the window in an instant at the inkling of a positive response. They were in the same department, after all; it was better to cooperate than drown in a pit of antagonism.
The clacking footsteps returned — made a beeline for his office, slammed the folders onto his desk. “Here.”
“What?” he snapped in response.
“Read and see.”
Her challenging look was obviously not meant to be anything but a quick reminder of her contempt — but his abrupt rise from his chair startled her enough to stop her mid-turning away.
“You’re not my boss,” he said, his tone still sharp. “If you expect me to work with you, you’ll have to be polite and ask nicely.”
“As if I want to work with you,” she replied, voice pitching high and nostrils flaring.
“You have a problem with me?”
“You bet your arrogant arse I do —”
“Well maybe we can find out whatever the hell it is over dinner sometime!”
She paused, then her eyebrows furrowed into disbelief, and her half-open mouth let out the words without a breath.
“What the hell, Potter?” She looked behind her in alarm, then turned to hiss at him. “You have the nerve to ask me out after all you did —”
“What did I even do —”
“— You opposed my recruitment in front of the whole board!”
“I didn’t —!” But his indignant protest died on his lips as the memory dawned in his brain. “Snape’s pitch for the position was you?”
She put her hands on her hips, her whole presence frazzling with electricity. “Who did you think it was!”
“I don’t know, one of those racist bastards he usually hangs out with!”
She only needed a moment to process that. “You mean you didn’t even look at my CV?” At his guilty silence, she huffed and lifted her arms in exasperation. “I don’t know if I should be appalled at this astounding lack of professionalism, or — or…”
He waited, the or loud and fraught with implications in his head as well; his patience paid off when her shoulders dropped and her eyes softened, all the fight gone from her.
“So you don’t think I’m not good at my job?”
“I think you’re brilliant at your job and one of the smartest, most capable people I’ve ever met in my life,” he answered without hesitation.
A bite of teeth on her lower lip — perfect white on his favourite shade of crimson. “Even though I’m a woman?”
He scoffed at the very idea. “I’m not usually the one making those kinds of distinctions.”
She blushed, but despite the — embarrassment? shyness? — a playful smirk illuminated her face. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
“I’m allowed to like a woman,” he answered, with a shrug he hoped to pass as nonchalant. “Especially one who’s so brilliant and capable on top of extraordinarily beautiful.”
Now she chuckled, and suddenly extraordinarily beautiful was too weak to do her justice.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “For — for being presumptuous.”
She raised one teasing eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know that James Potter says I’m sorry.”
He responded with his chin up and an air of exaggerated seriousness. “I’m nothing if not a professional.”
She nodded sceptically, then leaned with one deliberate hand on the desk, eyes roving all over him. “And that dinner you mentioned, was that professional as well?”
“Very,” he assured her, keeping up the theatrics in spite of her increased proximity — and the resulting spike in his heart rate. His eyes fell on her lips again — crimson and parted and with her tongue playing between them like a naughty secret.
“Ditch the professionalism,” she murmured, “and you’ve got yourself a deal.”