[On Hiatus] It Was Meant to Be (A James and Lily Story)

Chapter 19

Lily and James seemed to be set in a comfortable routine, the incident with Snape forgotten. Every morning, they would wake up and brush their teeth together, making each other laugh. Then, as they headed down to the Great Hall together for breakfast, they would exchange their schedules, trying to coordinate a time to finish up their Head duties. They would separate at breakfast, meeting up with their respective friends. However, they would meet again in the evening in the library, finishing up their homework together and asking each other questions. As James would leave to attend Quidditch practice and Lily would go to tutor Dorcas, they would both trade smiles while they continued on their own.

It was during one of these evenings that James and Lily found themselves holed up in the library, trying to finish up their Charms essay. Of course, Lily's quill flew seamlessly over her parchment, while James' was a bit slower.

"Erm, Lils? Where did you find that paragraph on the dangers of the charm?" James asked, peering at her from the top of his glasses.

"I think it was on page 238. Did you find it?"

James flipped through his textbook. "Oh, yeah, found it. Thanks."

A few minutes later, Lily placed her quill down and stretched her arms in front of her. "Finished! Merlin, that was exhausting."

"Gimme a few more minutes. I'm almost done."

Lily nodded and decided to work on cleaning out her schoolbag. It over a month into the school year and she had begun to throw in various pieces of parchment from her classes. She rolled up her Charms essay and placed it on the side as she began to organize the loose sheets of parchment floating around in her bag.

As she worked, she came across a crumpled piece of parchment hidden deep in the folds of her bag. She tried to straighten it out to read it, but across from her, James had just finished his essay.

Lily reached over and handed James her essay while also grabbing his essay. She stared at his cramped handwriting for a second before running her fingers over the dry ink. She smiled inwardly as she noticed the various crossed out sections in his essay. They were so different, but in the end, they both got the job done.

"Hey, Lily? I wanted you to review my essay, not ogle at my parchment," James said, staring at her, his eyebrows creased.

Lily let out a small laugh. "Okay, okay. I'm working on it, James."

She dipped her quill in fresh ink and began to read over his work. His essay was pretty well structured, but she made a few mental notes on where he could improve. Across from her, James was also doing the same, reading over her essay.

"I think you misread this part here, Lily. It took a while for me to understand the theory, but I think I got it."

Lily frowned and flipped through her textbook to reread the section he was referring to. She noticed that she had, indeed, misread the theory. She quickly revised the section of her essay before handing it back to James.

"There, much better. Thanks for catching that."

Once Lily had finished James' essay, she handed it back to him and gave him a few tips on where he could elaborate more. James nodded and began to flip through his textbook once again. Lily resumed organizing her bag, her gaze once again landing on the crumpled piece of parchment.

As Lily began to unfold it, she recognized her own small, curly handwriting and tried to rack her brain where it came from. When she had completely straightened out the parchment, Lily skimmed over the first line, her face glowing hot with embarrassment as she realized what she was holding.