The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Teacups and Time Travel

"James?"

He turned around to see Lily was awake and pushing herself up. "Evans?" he turned back to the bed, carrying the sweater. "Are you alright? Did I wake you?"

"The elf did," she said. She hugged her knees as he stood there, biting his lip, silhouetted by the moonlight coming through the window, his hair even messier than usual, his oxford half untucked from his trousers so that one tail hung over his thigh and the other disappeared beneath his belt buckle.

"I'm sorry, I tried to shut her up, she just wouldn't stop going on about getting in trouble for being up here," he apologized.

"It's okay," Lily said.

"Are you alright?"

"It hurts quite a lot," she whispered.

James sat down on the edge of the bed beside her and put his arm 'round her shoulders. "I'm really sorry. I don't reckon I can even start at imagining how it is you're feeling, Evans. I'd be wrecked if something like this ever happened to y-- to someone I loved."

Lily stared at his knees, how they folded, his feet off the side off the bed.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked, "I can go and fetch you some tea... Milk and a spot of sugar, yeah?"

"You know how I take my tea?" Lily looked up at him in confusion.

He flushed, "I've seen you prepare it in the morning at breakfast."

"But you remembered?" she asked.

"Evans... I remember everything when it comes to you."

It was her turn to flush.

"I'll be right back with your tea," he said and he started to get up, but she grabbed his arm instead, stopping him. "What?"

"How do you take your tea?"

"Two sugars."

"No milk?"

"Not a drop."

She made a point of deciding to remember that.

"I'll be right back with it, Evans," he said again, and he got up and hurried across the room to the door.

Lily's voice cut the dark as he touched the handle. "James."

He looked back. "Evans?"

"I would notice."

"You would notice what?" he asked, confused.

"If you were sent to Azkaban."

He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and said, "I'll be right back," and he dodged out of the dorm and hurried out to the stairs, which he stepped on, prepared for them to change to a chute, and skiied down them, a bit of a lightness to his step that hadn't been there before.

Lily waited until he'd closed the door and she got up and hurried over to her dresser. She combed her hair quickly and set it to braiding itself with a flick of her wand as she smeared a bit of shiny cherry lip gloss over her mouth and then sprang back to bed, tucking herself into exactly the same position she'd been in before he left only just in time as he was returned with the tea cups. A bit had sloshed onto the saucers. He held out the one with the milk and she took it and he sucked the spilled tea from his thumb and smiled as he sat on the foot of her bed again, kicking off his trainers and sitting so his stockinged feet were tucked beneath his knees, twisting his long legs like a pretzel.

"So how is it that you get up here anyway?" she asked.

He smiled, "I'll never tell."

"I thought it was something like you go stag to sneak up, but I don't see how you would've got the tea cups up here as a stag."