James and Lily were running through the corridors, holding hands. They were headed for the kitchens. Even though they'd been trapped in a cupboard for 2 hours, they still wanted to be alone. Well... alone with a few dozen house elves.
As they made their way down the staircase, they could hear the hustle and bustle of busy house elves as they scuttled off to the Great Hall to clear what remained of the party. There were less of them in the kitchen than usual, meaning they could easily make their way to the small array of chairs that sat, decrepit lined up against a wall. They sat on two worn out oak chairs in the form, separated by a tiny, crooked stool, acting as a table; and requested two hot chocolates.
"One with extra marshmallows please," James added after. Lily looked at him, she always complained to him every time they went down there that they gave her almost no marshmallows but would never ask for more, as it felt 'impolite'. She smiled at him warmly, and he smiled back, she could tell he wasn't entirely sure why she was smiling; which made him all the more attractive to her, because he didn't even realise how sweet his actions were, he was just doing it to make her happy.
"Thank you," Lily said to him, hoping he'd take the hint and realise why she was grinning so contently at him.
"For what?" James replied baffled at her random comment.
"Sometimes James," Lily looked at him with mock disgust, "you really can be a prat." She leaned over and kissed him again, just because she could now. He grinned giddily, not knowing why he deserved this praise, and not caring either.
One of the house elves brought their drinks over, handing a large mug with a pathetic blob of cream on top to James, and a drink with a huge heap of marshmallows piled daringly high on top, for Lily. She took it gratefully, thanked the elf and started to place it delicately down on the stool.
She looked at it greedily, her eyes glistening with child-like glee. She took her finger and scooped a dollop of whipped cream marshmallows straight into her mouth.
"Ho-ly crap", she slumped back in her seat, "now that is a hot chocolate."
James chuckled at her and pointed out, "you haven't even gotten to the hot chocolate part yet."
"I don't even care!" She exclaimed, causing James to shake his head, finding this random outburst of love for hot chocolate strange but intriguing, "you know, I haven't had a proper hot chocolate since I got to Hogwarts? They always give you a squirt of cream and 3 marshmallows, well no longer. From this day forward, I will always ask for more marshmallows, and that is thanks to you." She grinned a dopey smile and took another gigantic scoop of the mountain of sugar before her.
"James Potter, master prankster, head boy, great hair," he winked at Lily, but she just rolled her eyes, "and now I can add 'leader of the Proper Hot Chocolate Revolution' to that list."
"Sounds good to me," she smirked through mouthfuls of her new found love.
They continued to makes jokes, laugh and talk to each other until they had finished their hot chocolates. Feeling exhausted from a long day of ups and downs, they headed to their dormitory, finally ready to call it a night.
They climbed through the portrait hole, and stepped into the warm common room to find it empty, but luckily there was still a fire roaring, to keep the area warm. They stood in silence for a moment, standing in the middle of the room, neither wanting to be the first to leave.
Lily stared into James' beautiful hazel eyes and let go of him, "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
"Evans, no, not yet," James whimpered longingly for her to stay, "just 5 more minutes."
"You've been saying that for the last half an hour," she pointed out sternly.
"Tomorrow's a Sunday though, we can just relax and sleep all day anyway."
"In case you've forgotten, we still have a Potions essay to write for Monday," James groaned at his, cursing himself for not completing homework before it was due for once in his life.
"You know if you hadn't have asked for a second hot chocolate we would have had more time in the common room," she lowered her voice to add, "or somewhere more private."
James flushed immediately, not forming any known words to reply with.
Lily giggled madly at making him embarrassed, she spun around and headed for the staircase to her room, "you're such an idiot, Potter, but I love you for it. Night."
James froze, shock holding his body, making him almost motionless, "what did you just say?"
Now she'd gone and done it. She hadn't meant it, it had just come out. Well, she had meant it, she did love him, but maybe he didn't love her? Of course she knew he liked her and that he had a crush on her. But love? That was a different matter entirely.
"Hmm?" She responded, trying to think on her toes, "I just called you an idiot. Goodnight." And she quickly turned back round again, almost sprinting up the stairs.
"No, no," James said, clearly not going to let this one go, "after that bit."
"Oh it was... you know emm," Lily was panicking, her mind had deserted her and she was becoming unintelligible, "probably just... err."
"You said you loved me," James said, as a statement, not a question.
"Well maybe but in like, you know, a friendly-"
He cut her off, his mouth was still open wide and he blinked slowly, "Lily Evans loves me?" He said carefully and quietly, to himself more than to Lily herself.
He stood up perfectly straight and yelled, "Lily Evans loves me!"
She shut her eyes right, that seemed to do it. This loud deceleration seemed to illicit some sort of response from the rest of the Gryffindor tower. Suddenly, there were footsteps from every direction of confused and tired students alike, wondering what the hell was going on.
Sirius, Remus, Marlene and Peter pushed their way through to the front of the forming crowds, all standing on the staircase, watching with silent focus as a scene unfolded before them.
Lily glanced around her, her cheeks going a bright red, "look James, I didn't mean anything by it", she stumbled on her words, frantically shaking her head.
However he wasn't even listening to her anymore and shook his head back, "Lily Evans you love me," he strode over to her with conviction, and holding her face with one of his warm hands, whispered to her, "and I love you too."
Relief washed over her. Deep down she had always known, but to hear the words from him made her feel as though the whole world had waited for a moment like this. He kissed her, with the same strong passion as before, but it felt different this time. A good different. Because this time everything felt certain. Like everything was going to be okay, forever.
***
"James where the bloody hell are you?" Lily craned her neck to look up the staircase to the boys dormitory, nervously pacing around the common room, "we're going to be late."
"Alright," he replied, sounding exasperated, "just give me 2 more seconds!"
She fell into one of the armchairs around the fireplace, annoyed at James' antics. Everyone had already gone down to the party, they'd be the last to arrive. And although late is fashionable, she thought, this was pushing it a little too far. They were head boy and girl for Merlin's sake, they should've been helping the elves set up!
"James, come on!" she was getting anxious now, they were missing most of the ball and it was their last ever chance to be with all their friends. The NEWTs had finished and their little group were all going separate ways, it was their final hoorah. And they were missing it.
"I'm here, I'm here, no need to fret Evans," James stumbled down the stairs, holding his hair to make sure it stayed in place, "your date has arrived." He placed his hands on his hips, grinned at her and waltzed on over to where she was sitting.
Lily stood up and took in what stood before her, "Potter you actually look handsome for once," she giggled, looked up at his hair and gasped, "did you try to tame your hair?"
"Well... you always hate when I mess it up so I thought I'd try something new! How does it look?" He said proudly showing his barely managed hair.
"Ah, umm," Lily started and went to touch it, "well let's just say I think I can improve it." Moving her hands into his hair she gently messed it up to it's natural mess.
"Evans! What did you do that for? That took me almost an hour to perfect." He frowned sadly at his ruined work.
"You didn't need to change it for me, I liked it as it was," Lily smiled softly at him, James sighed and messed it up more himself, "also you looked absolutely ridiculous."
"Hey, watch it, one day I might be a hairdresser. Who knows," that made them both laugh.
When they stopped laughing, James looked at Lily with a twinkle in his eye, "you on the other hand, look stunning," Lily blushed but he continued, "I thought nothing could top your costume to the Halloween dance but... Merlin's beard was I wrong. And I'm glad I was too."
He stood back and slowly took in her whole outfit. She had another stunning deep green dress on. However instead of being skin tight it was a lacy piece with a corset-like top which elegantly transformed into a puffed out skirt. Her hair was curled and put in a messy high bun with small emerald gems lain all over it. And in the middle of it all, was a sparkling necklace, with a real emerald glimmering in the middle.
James stood in a dazed trance staring at Lily, until she finally took the initiative to get a move on down to the dance.
"We better go, it's already 9, the dance started an hour ago, we'll be the last to arrive by a mile," she sped swiftly over to the door, followed eagerly by James.
"If you insist, my dear," James smirked and followed her through the portrait hole.
They walked down the stairs and quickly through the corridors, hoping to make it when the doors were still open, as to avoid a scene. However, Lady Luck appeared not to be on their side today and Filch had already shut the doors.
"Damn," Lily cursed James for being so obsessed with his appearance, "I guess we'll have to go round the back."
James grabbed Lily's arm as she made a move back towards the stairs, "I mean... we could always go through the main entrance?"
"I don't want to cause a scene though, I think I've had enough of those for this year," Lily replied wearily, not excited to draw anymore unwanted attention to herself.
James pulled her closer to him, "come on, just this once," he saw hesitation on Lily's face so added, "for me?"
James was pouting and Lily rolled her eyes, "urgh, alright then fine, but never again, got it?"
"Got it, never again," James replied joyfully, and pointed his wand at the floor. Lily stared at it, puzzled as to why he'd brought it. He shot a spark out of the tip, and slipped it back into his blazer pocket.
Lily groaned, "ah... I see this was your plan all along then?"
"Oh my Lily-flower, will you ever learn? First and foremost I am a prankster - a little trickery is what makes me tick." He grinned so freely, Lily couldn't help but smile back.
"I suppose you'll want us to be in a romantic embrace then?" She asked, now fully on board with the plan because well, they were leaving in a couple of days so why the hell not?
"You know me too well." James grasped Lily's thigh, dipping her into a movie-like pose.
He looked into her eyes, and kissed her just for good luck. She beamed at him as they heard the creaky doors to the hall swing open.
"Ready?" she asked him.
"Always."
(A/N) short (slight rushed) epilogue :) just wanted to ask... did you like the last line? Yes I did steal it from Snape because I don't think it deserves to be used as a term of love between them, it should be between James and Lily. The ones who were really in love. Or did you not associate it with Snape at all? Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!
Q: do you like Snape? Do you think he deserves the hate he gets?
If you enjoyed this story please consider voting! And thanks for reading :)