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Lily Evans hated James Potter.
She never had such strong disdain directed towards a person as much as she did James. She disliked a great deal of things; creases in her books after someone borrowed them, chamomile tea swirled with honey, chipped mugs and monachromatic paintings — but all of those lived safely in the realm of mild irritation. Nothing compared to the violent fire that settled in her gut whenever she saw James Potter’s face.
Hatred, at least, made sense.
She rationalised it through his many flaws — or, more accurately, the infuriating lack of consequences for them. In all her fourteen years of living, she had never encountered another boy so effortlessly cocky, so certain the world would bend itself around him. He was charming and talented and adored, and it irritated her beyond reason. People like James Potter were rewarded for breathing.
He laughed too easily. He took risks knowing someone else would clean up after him. He treated rules like suggestions and authority like a game, and somehow it all worked in his favour. Teachers sighed and smiled. Students followed him. Even his arrogance was forgiven, reframed as confidence.
He had to have cracks — ugly ones, selfish ones — the same way everyone else did. Hers were always on display, magnified and judged; everyone else’s seemed visible too, if you bothered to look. So why was James Potter allowed to skate through untouched, untarnished, golden?
And then there was Severus.
The way James laughed when his friends hexed him, the casual cruelty of it all. They teased and picked on him over the smallest of things. Sev would simply exist and James would find reason to terrorize him. He always called it a joke when she called him out.
She wasn't one to fall for a smile and an infuriating brown hair.
.•° ✿ °•.
Lily Evans tolerated James Potter, bordering on neutrality.
It was not a conclusion she had arrived at willingly.
At sixteen, Lily liked structure — not in the sense of rules for the sake of rules, but in the way beliefs gave shape to the world. Right and wrong mattered to her. Intentions mattered, yes, but so did impact, and she had learned early that charm often disguised cruelty more effectively than malice ever could. James Potter had been an easy example of that truth for years.
Which was why it unsettled her when he stopped fitting so neatly into the role she had assigned him.
The change did not arrive with an apology or an announcement. If anything, James seemed determined not to draw attention to it at all. He stopped hexing people in corridors(namely the slytherins), stopped laughing when Sirius did something thoughtless, and stopped turning every moment into a joke. He still smiled too easily, still carried himself with an ease Lily found irritating, but there was a restraint there now — a conscious one.
Lily noticed because she always noticed change.
She noticed in Potions, when James caught himself before making a joke and instead focused on his work. She noticed in the library, when he lowered his voice without being asked. She noticed the way he watched her sometimes — not with entitlement, but with something closer to awareness, as though he were measuring himself against a standard he had not previously considered.
It made her uncomfortable.
Lily had built her dislike of James Potter on evidence. On patterns of behaviour, on moments of public humiliation she had not imagined, on cruelty that had been real and sustained. Severus’s name still sat heavy in her chest, still bringing with it the memory of laughter that had not cared who it hurt. That history did not vanish simply because James had decided to behave better.
And yet, she could not deny the absence of repetition.
Severus was no longer a target — not of James, at least. Lily watched carefully for backsliding, for hypocrisy, for the cruelty that thrived away from witnesses. She did not find it. What she found instead were silences where there had once been taunts, and distance where there had once been delight.
Tolerance, she discovered, was far more exhausting than hatred.
Hatred had sharpened her instincts, given her certainty. Neutrality required evaluation. It required her to acknowledge that people were not constant, that change — however belated — could be genuine. It unsettled something deep in her, because it meant admitting the world was more nuanced than the lines she had drawn around herself.
She did not trust him. Not fully. She doubted his motivations, and questioned the sincerity of his growth. She told herself that James Potter did not deserve a golden star simply for stopping the worst of his behaviour.
But she no longer felt the familiar flare of anger when he entered a room.
That was the problem.
There were moments now (irritating, unwanted moments) when she found herself speaking to him without an edge. Passing him a pen without thinking. Working alongside him in class without bracing for conflict. Once, she even laughed at something he said before she could stop herself.
James looked at her then, surprised and almost… careful. He did not press. Did not capitalise. He simply smiled, smaller than usual, and turned back to his work.
Lily spent the rest of the day furious with herself.
Neutrality, she decided, was the worst of feelings. It crept in quietly, dismantling certainty piece by piece. It asked her to reconcile who James Potter had been with who he appeared to be becoming — she was not ready to do that yet.
So she tolerated him.
She kept her distance. Maintained her standards. Refused to call it forgiveness or friendship or anything that implied trust. James Potter existed in a careful, controlled bubble in her life now — no longer an enemy, but far from an ally.
She told herself it meant nothing at all.
She knew it was a lie.
.•° ✿ °•.
Lily Evans realised she liked James Potter the day she decided she was ready to tell him.
It had taken her long enough.
She stood by the window in the common room, watching the late afternoon light smear gold across the stone, rehearsing words she had never planned to say aloud. Not a confession — she refused to frame it that way — just… the truth. A small one. A careful one. Something like I don’t hate you anymore toerag, softened into something braver, more akin to reality. Something like I think I might like you.
It mattered that it was her choice.
James had changed. Not overnight, not dramatically, but in a deliberate way that convinced her it wasn’t an act. He listened now. He thought before he spoke. He didn’t ask for forgiveness he hadn’t earned, and he didn’t demand anything from her in return. Lily respected that more than any apology.
She wasn’t nervous. That would mean she had any expectations.
She was simply aware— aware that liking him felt like stepping off solid ground, aware that once said, it could not be unsaid. But Lily Evans had never been afraid of truth, only of carelessness, and she had chosen her moment carefully.
James was laughing near the fireplace when she turned from the window. Sirius was there too, sprawled and grinning, the air around them buzzing. Lily waited for the laughter to fade before approaching, heart beating a little too quickly for her liking.
“Potter,” she said.
He looked up immediately. Always did now. “Hey, Evans.”
She opened her mouth — and stopped.
James looked different. He had this lovesick look on his face. Usually, it had always been directed to her, but now it was different. She ignored the churning of her stomach at the idea.
“You're different.” She blurted out before the words caught up to her.
His eyes went wide for a second, the brown of his eyes deepening into black. He froze up for a second before stammering.
Before he could answer, Sirius leaned back in his chair, squinting at him. “Shes right mate. You’ve been weird all day?”
James snorted, looking at Sirius now. “Have not.”
“You absolutely have,” Sirius said. “You’ve got that face. It's the one you get when you’re keeping something from us. From me.”
James rolled his eyes. “I’m not keeping—”
“Prongs,” Sirius cut in, grinning. “You are physically incapable of subtlety.”
Lily shifted her weight, suddenly unsure why she was still standing there. Something tight and unpleasant curled in her chest.
“I mean,” Sirius continued, stretching, “you don’t get to just sit there looking smug and stuttering and not tell us. That’s not how this works.”
James opened his mouth — then shut it again, glancing briefly toward her before looking back at Sirius.
“Oh,” Lily said lightly, the word escaping before she could stop it. “I’ll just go… Sorry for interrupting."
James blinked. “You’re not.”
She smiled anyway, too quickly. “Right. I’ll, uh— come back later.”
Remus chose that moment to enter the common room, followed closely by Marlene and Mary, conversation spilling around them as they crossed the room.
Sirius’s grin widened. “Perfect timing. Jamie here is hiding something.”
James sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I’m not hiding it.”
“You literally are,” Marlene said, dropping onto the sofa. “Your vibe is off.”
Remus raised an eyebrow, mild but perceptive. “Just tell us, James.”
James looked around at them — Sirius expectant, Remus curious, the girls attentive — and then he laughed, a little breathless, like he’d made up his mind.
“Alright,” he said, “just promise not to kill me, Pads.”
Lily stayed where she was, rooted in place by something she couldn’t name.
“Regulus and I are together,” James said. “We’ve been seeing each other for a bit.”
The room reacted all at once.
Sirius jumped and started attacking him. Mary grinned and passed a few coins to a smug Remus. Marlene let out a surprised squeal.
Lily said nothing.
“Oh,” she managed, after a second. “That’s… nice.”
James looked relieved, though just a smidge of sadness passed by. “Yeah. It is.”
The conversation moved on without her.
Lily let herself drift toward the stairs, the noise of the common room dulling behind her. The words she’d prepared earlier felt suddenly ridiculous, heavy in her mouth. Timing, she realised, was a cruel and precise thing.
She hadn’t been too late.
She’d been exactly on time to hear the wrong truth.
.•° ✿ °•.
Lily Evans had come to love James Potter.
Her fondness soon evolved into complete and utter infatuation. She’d spent far too much time memorizing each curve of his face and the shades of his eyes — caramel with a hint of mahogany, sometimes light, sometimes dark, depending on the weight of whatever he was thinking. She noticed the way his fingers drummed on the table when he was impatient, the small, careless movements he made when he thought no one was watching, the way his laughter seemed to fill a room before anyone else had a chance.
She had always been careful not to let anyone notice, to contain the way her chest ached whenever he was near. James Potter was not hers. He had chosen, or rather been chosen by, a life that did not include her. If she could not have him, simply existing alongside him — knowing him, seeing him, learning him in quiet increments — would have to suffice. She told herself that admiration was enough. That quiet infatuation did not require reciprocation. That this love, private and controlled, could exist without claiming him.
Still, it hurt.
Still, tears welled her eyes in the quiet of the night.
Even when he smiled at his friends, at Sirius, at anyone who was not her, she felt a pang that was both longing and recognition. The knowledge that this warmth he spread so easily was never meant for her made her chest tighten, made her hands curl into fists at her sides. She tried not to dwell, but the details lodged themselves stubbornly in her mind: the faint crease at the corner of his mouth when he smirked, the way his hair fell over his forehead in careless waves, the weight in his gaze when he wasn’t paying attention.
She had loved him before she realized she could. She had tolerated him, grudgingly liked him, and now, after years of careful observation and restrained longing, she acknowledged it fully to herself: she loved James Potter.
And now she was here.
She stood beside James as a groomsperson, a silent witness to every careful step down the aisle. Her hands were folded neatly beside her, heart hammering against the ribs she could not control. The hall was a quiet blaze of white and silver, flowers lined like sentinels along the aisle, the sunlight scattering across glass and stone.
James Potter stood at the front, calm and impossibly composed, the reckless boy she had once hated now tempered into someone steady, radiant with certainty.The Sun. Regulus looked every bit the partner he had chosen: poised, elegant, warm. Everything she was not. And the reverence James showed him — the soft exhale of his smile when their hands met — made something twist in her chest, a mixture of awe and ache she could not name.
She had no right to interfere. No right to imagine what she wished for. Still, her mind betrayed her. When James began his vows, voice steady and measured, words meant for someone else, Lily let herself imagine. Let herself hear each phrase as if he were speaking to her, the syllables reshaping in her head to fall only for her ears.
“I promise to stand by you, always. To choose you, every day. To love you through everything, through laughter, through sorrow…”
“I know you tend to doubt a lot throughout life, but I never want you to doubt how much I care about you. I love you more than all of these words say…”
No matter how much she would've liked to stay in her little fantasy, the truth was those words weren't hers. Never would be. It would always be Regulus’s name next to his.
She opened her eyes again just in time to see the rings exchanged, James sliding one onto Regulus’s finger with deliberate care, a perfect gesture of devotion. She had to look away, because the room was too full of life, too full of joy that was not hers to touch. Her hands clenched lightly at her sides, nails digging into her palms, grounding herself in the present.
And as the ceremony ended, the room filled with applause and congratulations, Lily felt something settle inside her: love, complete and whole, heavy and private, alive in memory and observation.
She loved James Potter.
She always would.
And she would never tell him.
.•° ✿ °•.
The room was quiet, too quiet, though Lily Evans could feel every breath she drew.
Pain rose and fell in waves, each one slower than the last, but her mind remained unnervingly sharp. She thought of her parents, of Petunia, of friends and laughter, of her husband and kids, of arguments that felt trivial now and promises kept and broken. Her life stretched behind her like a long, narrow ribbon, every twist, every corner, every bright moment and dark shadow threading together into something she could finally see whole.
And yet, above everything else, one thought surfaced.
James Potter.
Not as he had been when she first noticed him, not the reckless boy she had hated and tolerated and eventually learned to like. Not even the man she had watched choose Regulus and dedicate himself to another. But him. James Potter, in every shape and iteration she had ever loved, in every detail that had lodged itself into her memory. The tilt of his head when he laughed. The depth of his eyes. The crooked smile that had once annoyed her.
She let herself see it clearly, all at once, in the last moments she could command. She remembered the ache of knowing her true love was sometimes meant to be observed from the sidelines, never claimed from the forefront.
And still, it was almost enough.
The pain ebbed again, and she felt the world narrowing to a pinpoint of light and warmth. Memories of him came faster now, unbidden, as if her mind were racing to hold him close one final time. Every laugh, every glance, every heartbeat — she carried them all.
Her chest rose and fell more slowly, each breath heavier than the last. Lily could feel the life draining from her, could feel the end approaching, inexorable and inevitable. And in that clarity, there was peace. Not joy, not triumph, but an absolute, serene truth: love had been real, and it had been hers.
She did not need more than that.
As Lily Evans took her last breath, it was brown eyes hair she thought of.
He had, in all the ways been hers in memory. The love she had carried for eternity. He had been her beginning, her center, her ending.
James Potter was the name on Lily’s lip as she was buried for centuries to come.