The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

Determined to Die

"Well. It's good."

James smiled. "You have the most beautiful eyes." Lily bit her lips. He reached over and pushed a fallen bit of hair behind her ear as she flushed. "They're... they're just so green. Is there even a word for the colour they are?"

"At lot of people say emerald," Lily said.

James shook his head, "No... no emeralds aren't as bright as your eyes are." His hand hovered near her jaw, holding her hair gently aside, his knuckles just brushing her cheek. "You know that green colour of a Sprite soda pop bottle?"

Lily's eyebrows raised.

"Your eyes are like if the sun lived inside that bottle."

Lily flushed even harder.

He smiled. "I think I have a new favorite pop." And he leaned away, drawing his hand with him.

Lily's heart raced. She'd thought he was going to kiss her and when he didn't she felt a peculiar sense of being let down. She stared up at him.

"So... does Apple find out if the girl was a murder or a suicide?" James asked, nodding at her book.

"Oh. I - I don't know, I haven't read it before. She's about to find out." Lily looked down at the book.

James looked at Lily. "You could read it if you like."

"And what are you going to do?" she laughed, "Sit there and stare at me while I read?"

"You could read it out loud."

Lily looked up at him. He wasn't smirking. He wasn't even grinning stupidly. He wasn't kidding. "I mean, you haven't read the first thirty-something chapters, so for me to read you the last ones --"

"You don't have to if you don't want to," he said.

"No, I just don't want you to be confused and --"

"You can explain it if I get confused," he suggested. "You caught me up pretty well before, yeah?"

"I s'pose..."

"So who are the suspects?"

Lily bit her lip, staring up at him. There was a tension between them... something she couldn't name... something that made her very nervous and she didn't know why. But it wasn't a bad nervous, not nervous like Mulciber made her nervous but a different sort of nervous. "You really want to hear about all this rubbish?"

"Evans, you have no idea how pretty your face lit up before when you were talking about it. I want to hear about anything that makes your face light up like that some more. You're so beautiful when you talk about things you're passionate for," James said. Lily laughed because she didn't know what else to do and he reached for her chin and gently tilted her to face him. "Why're you laughing?"

"You need your prescription checked," she said.

"My prescription?"

"I'm not beautiful, James. You're clearly seeing blurry."

He looked genuinely confused.

"What?"

"Have you never seen a mirror before?"

"Of course I have."

"Then how the bleeding hell can you think you aren't beautiful?" his eyebrows folded in the middle.

Lily stammered, "I've never -- I'm -- I mean -- Petunia's always been ---"

"Petunia?" James said in disgust, "Merlin's beard, you don't look a bit like her."