Jily Oneshots (pt2)

I hate how much I love you

"Great." He winks at her, "Mates for life."

"Mates for life." she agrees firmly, but the lines on her forehead don't disappear.

James has known Lily since they were eleven, so six whole years. Almost seven, come September first. She's grown up in the best ways possible, keeping her childlike wonder and growing more beautiful each year. This year especially, she came back looking like a model thanks to her flawlessly brushed, lengthy auburn hair and thickly applied eye liner. She's always stood out from the crowd because she was so vivacious but now, she stood out because she's taken to wearing her muggle clothes under her cloak on weekends.

James has a favorite outfit, not that he's motivated to actually telling her what outfit he likes best. Luckily, she wears her buttoned yellow shirt, bright like the sun, almost once a week. And when she pairs the yellow shirt with her white trousers that flared out at the ankle? James always has to take an extra amount of time to remember how to speak words around her when she wears that.

As if she knows his preference, she wore the outfit to the last Hogsmede trip of the year with her long her hair braided down her back. He is bewitched by Lily, so he doesn't leave her side, even after all their friends have left The Three Broomsticks in favor of the sweets shop. He is playing with her, working her u like he always did. It starts with a tug of her braid and soon, he's trying to take her drink.

"James...no!" she's laughing again, her usual reaction to his antics, "It's mine, Get your own!"

It does her no good, James has long arms and snatches her mug from her loose fingertips with ease, knocking the rest of her drink back with three big gulps. She hits him when he slams the mug on the bar. Her green eyes are wrinkled at the edges from her toothy smile as she steals her mug back.

"I hate you."

But she's snickering and already getting out her coin purse to pay for another drink.

James rolls his eyes and reaches for his own gold, giving it to Rosie the barmaid before Lily could even count her sickles. He ignores her protests and instead, swipes a bit of foam from her newly refilled glass, plopping it on her nose. She uses her sleeve to wipe it off and then takes a drink.

She stares at him over the top of her new mug. He can see the smile in her eyes as they settle back into their seats. Her yellow shirt has fallen open where she left the buttons undone. James traces the curve to Lily's collarbone in the darkened haze of the bar.

"I'll miss you over the summer."

Her voice is light, with just a slight tone of sadness echoing throughout it. A hopeful lurch to James' gut wakes him out of his reveries.

"You just said you hated me." he pointed out, playfully swinging his foot against hers under the bar.

"I like to hate you."

"You like to hate me?" he snorts, "You make no bloody sense, Evans."

"I like you," she says it again, matter-of-factly, "But I also hate you. In an affectionate kind of way."

"How do you hate someone affectionately?"

"When that someone steals your firewhiskey." she quips, winking at him before swiping his mug right out from under his nose and drinking the rest of his drink.

He fancies her and she likes to hate him. It was all very roundabout, but he reckons it could be worse. He could fancy her, and she could actually hate him. Luckily, she doesn't, not even a little bit.

Lily looks at him with stars in her eyes whenever they meet up for ice cream in Diagon Alley that summer. She asks him to stop buying her ice cream or her arse won't fit into her jeans. James thinks her arse would always looks good in jeans, but he won't tell her that as she's dragging him to the antique stores in Cokesworth. Lily picks out postcards from the 20′s to send to friends and tries on an old helmet from world war one.