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“Evans–now this is getting ridiculous.”
She clenches her eyes even more shut, keeping her body curled into a tight ball in the squashy arm chair.
“Go away—I’m fine. Just…resting.” The effort to speak makes her head ring. “Shouldn’t you be in class anyway?”
She hears the dampened sound of footsteps and opens her eyes. James stands in front of her, tugging at his tie until it comes loose around his neck, his bag abandoned on the ground.
“Peter told me you were up here looking like a shriveled up flobberworm,” he says plainly, “Can’t have my friends looking that bad.”
“Well, remind me to tell Peter exactly what I think he looks like next time he comes around,” she huffs, a frown too painful to muster.
It gets a smile out of him and for a moment she can look past the utter embarrassment of probably actually looking like a flobberworm. Through her pounding temples, his use of the word friend rattles around, taunting her in a way that she doesn’t have the energy nor desire to focus on. They are friends— that is a good thing. So why does it feel like a knife to her frontal lobe everytime he says it?
Her eyes blink open again to see him rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, tie now lost and the top buttons undone in a carelessly disheveled look.
Oh, that’s why.
“You should at least go to the hospital wing,” he chides. The good advice sounds foreign from his mouth.
“No hospital wing,” she croaks out. “Honestly, it's just a cold. I need to just sleep it off…”
A sharp chill runs through her chest and she shudders her body closer, burrowing her face into her knees. The fire next to her crackles warmly, but it’s like someone has put a shielding charm on it— all she can feel is the cold hollowness of the castle.
“Alright, suit yourself.”
Something resembling warmth slides under her and pulls her up out of the chair. Body going into panic mode, she begins to squirm in his arms, trying and failing to push against his chest and back into the chair.
“James, put me down. I’m disgusting–my nose is running.”
“Nah, you’re not disgusting,” he says with full sincerity, “just sick.” His arms tighten around her and she abandons all hope to be released, taking advantage of the opportunity to be cradled against him.
“We both know you won’t make it even two steps up to the girls dorm anyhow,” she adds, weakly. Playing a battle of wits with him on a normal day was exhausting enough, but with a fever it seemed downright unfair.
“Good thing I’m not going to the girls' dorm then.”
He turns his body in the other direction and starts climbing the steps to the boys’ dorm, having a far too easy time managing to carry her up such a cramped, spiral staircase. On the landing, he kicks open the door to the dorm room, all the boy’s bed curtains open and vacant besides leftover candy wrappers and bits of parchment.
“The lads are out in classes until at least dinner,” he sets her down on her feet but she holds onto his arm for balance, woozy from the blood rushing back to her body. “--and even so, I’ll tell them to shove off if they happen to try to skive off a class.”
Still holding onto his arm, he leads her over to his bedside. It’s not a place she hasn’t seen before: since fifth Remus would sometimes invite her up to listen to records and now in more recent months she would come up to join in whatever antics they were up to—but to get in his bed? If her body had the leftover energy to make her cheeks burn, she would have been on fire.
“You want me to sleep here?” She whispers, eyes darting around his space. None of the boys other than Remus had made their beds and looking down at the pulled back duvet she could imagine him clearly —sitting up with impossibly messy hair and eyes still full of sleep, stretching his arms over his head and yawning with some t-shirt on—or no shirt at all…
Suddenly everything went from freezing to blazing hot.
James blinks, brow crinkling. “Well, I guess you could sleep in someone else’s bed but I think it would be better to ask–”
Her head jerks up to find his face dangerously close. Too close when she’s probably pale as a ghost and full of mucus and just a friend.
“No–sorry. That’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to be some kind of goldilocks…”
“Goldi—what?”
Suddenly, succumbing to sickness seemed awfully appealing. “Nothing, I’m delirious.”
“Right.” His brow furrows and his eyes scan over her face for a moment. “Is this ok then? It’s just that you said you didn’t want to go to the hospital wing and–”
“It’s fine. Really. It’s honestly too kind of you.” She means it, though she doesn’t have the energy to imbue her words with exactly how much.
His face softens, a triumphant smile breaking onto his face. “It’s nothing. You can use my bed anytime—now, off you go.”
He leads her to sit and contemplate the most loaded statement she’s ever heard.
Acting as though offering his sleeping quarters is as natural as sharing a quill, he goes over to his wardrobe and starts pulling out drawers, hands fishing through pieces of fabric.
“So what will it be? Socks I presume? Maybe something more comfortable to sleep in?”
She can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or not. The room starts to go fuzzy again and she wishes she still had his arm to hold onto.
“Er–I have socks thanks.”
He turns around, holding thick, Gryffindor socks that are three sizes too big for her.
“Yeah, but do you have quidditch grade, comfy , wool socks?” He tosses them in her direction and she just barely makes the catch.
“Really, you’re doing too much I’m fine with—”
He pulls out a shirt and holds it up to inspect. She immediately recognizes it as his quidditch jersey from last year, the words quidditch captain not yet emblazoned on the front, but his name still written in gold lettering across the chest. It happens so quick she could have dreamed it, but his eyes shift from the jersey to her, a smattering of red starting to appear on his cheeks.
“Ah, maybe…something else.” He mutters to himself, quickly stowing it away back into the drawer. Moments later, he pulls out a Montrose Magpie t-shirt and gives it a once over before walking it over to her in outstretched arms.
“Here you are. Can’t say I have the coziest of things, but it’s better than wearing a bloody tie.”
She takes it with a quiet thanks. The burning feeling of being in his room now gone, the unbearable chill from downstairs starts to creep back into her bones. Wanting desperately to be horizontal and under covers as soon as possible, she starts shucking off her tie and unbuttoning her shirt without care, only one button in before she realizes that James’ eyes are zeroed in on the act, completely blown out and frozen on her fingers.
“Uhm,” she murmurs and he snaps out of it, turning his body so fast that she would have surely fallen over if their roles were reversed.
“ Ah sorry!” He calls, now facing the wall. “I er–just wasn’t expecting that.” He continues to stare away from her, hands on his hips and leaning forward slightly as though he might be in pain. She continues to change, taking off her uniform and pulling the oversized shirt over her head. It’s long enough to cover down to her upper thigh, but she climbs under the covers anyway before letting him know the coast is clear. When he turns around again, he looks bashful—a full bloom of red covering his cheeks as his eyes naturally fall to the pile of her clothes on the floor.
“Feels better, thanks,” she calls out.
“Yeah…’course.”
With her head on a pillow, her body gets taken over by illness. The aches, the booming feeling in her head, the shivering cold all working together to make her want to disappear from the world entirely. From beyond the screen of her fever, she feels the edge of the bed dip from weight and can just barely make out the sound of his voice, talking low with someone else.
“Yeah—she’s really unwell ...found her in the common room and she refused to go to Poppy…no, just tell everyone else to give her some space and maybe if you pass by pick up something for her to eat when she wakes—otherwise I’ll go in a bit….”
She hears the garbled responses of another voice, but they sound distant, as though coming from a telephone receiver.
“...don’t be disgusting mate, she’s sick,” she hears James say, his voice flustered. “I’d do it for you too y’know….”
She misses the final exchanges, feeling the lull of sleep attempting to beat out the frigid feeling that continues to circle her like her own private blizzard.
The loss of his weight on the bed rouses her again as he gets up. Her body reacts immediately, an endless chant of no no no spiraling through her.
“Stay,” she calls out. From across the room his movement stalls.
“It’s so bloody cold—I can’t stand it. Can you please just stay,” she tries again in earnest. There’s no response other than a padding of feet towards the bed, then the press of his weight now next to her.
“You’re cold?” He murmurs, concerned. “ I have the fire running, but I can get more blankets—just give me…”
“No,” she says harder than before. She must be delirious, completely absolutely mental. There’s no other explanation for it, but the words bubble out anyhow.
“Can you just–come here?”
She scoots herself over on the bed, making just enough room to make her intention clear. She hears him swallow hard and the sound of his glasses landing on the bedside table before feeling something solid and warm press flush against her back.
“Of course,” he says softly and arms wrap around her. She grabs onto them to hold them even tighter, wishing she could just melt into him where evidently all the warmth in the whole world has been hiding from her. His heart hammers at her back and she hears herself give a soft shhh to it–acting as though he is the one needing the comfort rather than her.
“Is this ok?” He whispers. His lips are so close to her ear that his breath tickles her skin, but she is already drifting away, the sharp pain of cold subsiding and being filled with a delightful, encompassing warmth. The constant ache in her bones calming to just a dull memory as the room becomes darker and darker.
“Yes–you're perfect.” She thinks she hears a response but it's so far away it gets lost entirely. Pushing herself even closer to him, the calming wave of his breath and the smell of his clothes lull her deeper and deeper, until everything disappears entirely.
* * * * *
It’s no longer warm—it's burning. Her eyes flutter open and outside the window the sun is ducking behind the mountains, taking the last of the daylight with it. Her t-shirt sticks to her, covered with sweat as she turns her body, only to freeze when something warm and heavy skims across her hip.
An arm—and not hers.
“Your fever broke about an hour ago,” a voice says softly behind her, a bit gruff with sleep. “I got you some wet washcloths for your head—you should probably drink something, you’ve been sweating for a while now.”
She twists around to see James’ eyes staring back with concern but not making any further movements to untangle himself. Instead, he reaches an arm behind him onto the bedside table and procures a white fabric that drips slightly onto the comforter. Without her permission, he begins dabbing at her face, eyes following his movements with precision as he softly presses the cloth into her hairline. She settles onto her back, the feel of the cold doing wonders to her skin and he pulls himself up to hover over her slightly, a hand holding at her waist while the other continues to work up and down her face and neck.
If she lets herself ruminate on it for even a millisecond, it will become too much.
“Better?” He whispers, hand stalling against her cheek. With the fever gone, she is all too aware of how close he is and has been for the past few hours. His shirt, his socks, his bed, him swallowing her like some James Potter vortex that, if she is being honest, would seem like a pretty spectacular place to be—if they weren’t just friends.
“Lots–-thanks,” she murmurs. His hand moves to the other cheek and presses soft circles there. She leans into it, finally able to bask in the feel of his body against hers and the way his breath softly falls over her.
“Do you do this for all your sick mates?” She asks, breaking the silence with a wry smile.
He chuckles, hand still working against her skin. “Only the ones who deserve it—only the ones I’m especially fond of.”
Her heart clangs against her chest and she knows he can feel it. He stops again, dropping the rag by her side and going back to cup her chin.
“What else do you need?”
It’s a far too dangerous question given the circumstances, but her hand moves on its own accord, wrapping around him to hold him there as though he might disappear if she lets go.
“I don’t want to get you sick,” she musters out, “You’ve already done so much.”
“Then let me do more,” he says simply, eyes searching hers, the hand on her waist giving a soft squeeze.
“I want—” she begins, voice faltering. He hangs on her every word, eyes glittering from above her. There’s a thousand ways she could answer that sentence, each more true and raw than the last, but to say them now—now that they are finally getting along, finally mates— is a gamble she isn’t willing to make.
“--I want you to stay here.”
His mouth goes into a straight line, then forms into a soft, eager smile. “Of course, Evans. Of course, no problem.”
He settles back down next to her, a hand still cupping the side of her face and her eyes close, sleep already coming to take her away again. Even falling away, she can feel his eyes on her and pictures them clearly through the fog: gleaming and willing and unmistakably kind. She wonders if he can sense the double meaning in her words or if she is going to wake up again and find him gone, back to being just mates who talk and laugh and do nothing more.
“Lily?” His voice cuts through the quiet, breath hot at her neck.
“Hm?”
“Is it selfish of me to say I don’t want you to get better?” His voice sounds small but firm. “Is it selfish to say…I like having you here.”
It’s a bright, healing feeling that pulls him closer to her.
“Not at all,” she whispers. Suddenly, she’s feeling a lot better now–maybe better than she ever has before.
“It might even be the best thing for us.”