The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Wednesdays, Commonwealth Day, and the Swan Upping, Of Course

February in Paris was cold and wet and Lily wouldn't have had it any other way. Their days were spent under the umbrella, laughing and splashing one another in puddles, dancing on arched-brick walkways that reflected warm lights from storefront windows, and long kisses in snow flurries in front of the beautiful French architecture. James would hold her waist and lift her over puddles and she would giggle when he shook his head to get the rain drops off his hair like a shaggy dog. Every night, they sat for hours and hours and hours on their little balcony overlooking the portico, the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance like a tiny reminder of the specialness of the moments they were sharing.

Looking back on their time in Paris together, for all the rest of time, they would remember those days as the days that drew them the closest together. What they were learning anew was all the little things about one another that came out when one was completely free to be themselves with no distractions. There was no school work or work-work or friends or anything that interrupted their being near each other and it was like they were getting to know one another like the cogs in a piece of clockwork fitting together perfectly.

Lily lay in James's arms one morning, so early that the sun hadn't come up yet, their skin pressed together and his arms around her back, gently holding her shoulder as she lay curled into his side, her head on his chest, fingertips drawing soft hearts against his sternum. 

"James?" she whispered.

"Hm?"

"My magique amor won't be complete without you."

He was quiet.

"Please."

She could hear his heart beat, could hear it pick up as his body tensed slightly under her. 

"Why don't you want me to feel you, James?" she whispered. 

He closed his eyes. "Because, Evans, I don't want to be the reason why you feel any sort of pain."

"It pains me to know that I haven't done everything I can to protect you... to be close to you..."

He drew a deep breath through his nose and let it out in a long, low gust.

"James..."

He rolled from under her, sliding his arm back, and sat up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed. The span of his bare back faced her and she could see the outline of his spine, a few small brown freckles that dotted his back across his shoulders blades. His shoulders were thick, muscular, leading off into his rather strong biceps... but the way he was sitting, the way his shoulders curved slightly... Lily could feel the heaviness in the posture, even without touching him, even without having that connection that the Magique Amour could give her. She could see the burden on them.

"You carry so much, honey," she whispered. "I just want to help you carry it."

James's voice was small. "I don't want you to think different of me, though."

"Think different of you?" Lily whispered. She drew her legs up and crawled over to to him carefully, kneeling behind him, wrapping her arms under his arms so that her hands met on his chest, and she pressed her face against the nape of his neck, kissing the spot where his spine met his shoulders. "I could never think differently of you. You're so brave and good, God James - you're so good."

He was quiet.

"I know that I didn't understand for so many years and maybe that's what you're scared of, but I was wrong all that time and if I had anyway to go back and change all that... to see you for who you were from the very first day... No one else would've sat with me in that compartment, with my face all red from crying. You did, though. You could've sat anywhere on the train and you chose to sit with a blubbering girl... and to ask if I was alright. And I should have let that moment define how I saw you all the rest of the time I've known you."