by scriibble
By the time Horace Slughorn's annual Slug Club Christmas party rolls around, James Potter hasn't fancied Lily Evans for months, thank you very much.
As 1977 nears its close, they're friends, certainly—good friends, even best friends, as she sometimes teases Sirius just to pique his faux indignance. They serve as co-Heads, laugh with their friends in the common room, study occasionally in the library, and patrol together on the evenings that their schedules mesh, but he doesn't fancy her. He's long since moved on from losing his train of thought when her skirt shifts even a fraction of an inch, or his heart fluttering with something as simple as a flick of her eyes his way, or his full body convulsing when she grazes his arm during mealtimes or nudges his shoulder teasingly. He can hold a bloody conversation with her without fumbling his words or bungling a joke or ruffling his hair—something fourteen-, fifteen-, and even sixteen-year-old James had never managed for long. He even succeeds in keeping his wits about him when she shows the occasional crack of something real and honest and vulnerable past the bright, cheeky, chipper brilliance of the way she approaches the world, and he acts relatively normally when those moments happen with more and more regularity. Sure, his throat sometimes threatens to close when her voice drops into shades of melancholy as she tells him quiet tales about her sister or confides in him some of the worst ways their Slytherin peers have given her a hard time over the years, but that's certainly normal, isn't it? It's normal because they're friends, best friends, and he cares about her and sees her as a complex person, and no longer solely as the star of the majority of his fantasies from puberty's onset.
And yet—
And yet it's her hair, her fucking hair, that finally undoes him. Swept up in a chignon, one so loose that soft tendrils escape around her face and brush against the exposed length of her neck and trail between her bared shoulder blades like curled flames, her hair unravels all of the growth he's managed in months' worth of stern lectures he's given himself behind the curtains of his four-poster bed. He can only stare at her, open-mouthed like a fish out of water, as she brushes a stray curl from her face in the crowded chaos of Slughorn's office. Truly, he feels like a fish out of water, one thrust out of comfortable denial and into distressing truth: of course he fancies her. He's never stopped fancying her, no matter his best efforts and furious attempts to the contrary.
"You look…different," he says eventually, words difficultly pulled from a throbbing throat. A second later, the idiocy of his statement—hammered further home by Sirius' sideways glance that reads really, mate?—floods his body with heat.
She doesn't so much as blink. "Thanks," she says dryly, a smile tugging up one corner of her lips. She's painted them a deep, captivating red that matches the shade of her hair near exact, and, fascinated, he can't tear his eyes away from the words that form there. "That's what I was going for. Different."
"Good." He hears Sirius snort behind him, a sound muffled into his fist, and just barely suppresses the urge to shove him. "Sorry. I meant good. You look good."
"Thank you." She passes a hand over one smooth hip, flattening down the navy fabric of her dress robes that sparkle in the dim amber light like a sinful stretch of stars. He spies a similar constellation in the soft scatter of freckles that grace her chest, freckles typically hidden by the careful buttons of her uniform. Chancing a glance at them—and then a second, and then a quick third—
Well, he's suddenly never appreciated Astronomy more.
"You could have at least tried to comb your hair," she adds. "You look like you just rolled out of bed."
The dam has burst. He can see no other explanation for the uncontrollable wave of longing that comes over him at the thought of bed and her, and it feels like the careful suppression of his feelings has only increased their fervor once recognized. Watching her red mouth form the word and her fingers linger over the soft swell of her hip, he can easily visualize her right there along with him. He can almost see her brilliant hair spread softly across his pillow; can almost feel the heat of her skin through the slick fabric of her robes; can almost hear his name from her lips, that same, taunting James that he's enjoyed hearing from the moment they'd—mostly—moved past surnames. Heat rises further up his neck, flooding his collar, and his tongue swells with an anxiety unique to her, an anxiety he hasn't felt in at least a year of denial that has stalked his waking hours only to collapse most nights when he chases sleep. He's done his best not to ruminate over those vivid dreams in the light of morning, insistent to his captive audience—his own tortured mind—that Hogwarts probably doesn't house a straight bloke who doesn't dream about Lily Evans once in a while.
Mere inches away, so temptingly close that he swears he can smell the familiar, sweet scent of her perfume despite the mix of other bodies around them, she stands close enough that he could easily reach out and touch her hair. As their friendship has blossomed, he's touched her more often and with more familiarity than he once could have ever dreamed—an arm around her shoulders to tease, a hand around her wrist in their hours spent studying, a few scattered hugs that have always knocked the air from his lungs—but he's never dared to so much as tug at her hair. The wild curls that tumble midway down her back have always seemed sacred. He's stared for years as the strands have caught in the firelight in the common room, the same strands that burn brilliantly bright and recognizable from the stands even atop his broom during Quidditch matches. He's admired her hair—the swinging motion when she laughs, the way it tumbles loose during fits of anger, the contrast of flecks of snow during winter months or dew collected in the spring—for longer than he's even fancied her.
Her eyes slide past his shoulder when he doesn't immediately respond, and an eyebrow twitches when they alight on someone. "I promised Rhonda I'd find her," she says. "Can I catch up with you later?"
They hadn't attended the party together, of course—why would they, as mere best friends?—but disappointment still twists his chest, still sags his shoulders, still presumably casts shadows across his face. "Er—sure."
If she notices, she doesn't show so much as a single hint. Truly, she doesn't even glance at him. Her hand reaches for his forearm, where she presses a gentle squeeze, before she slips in between him and Sirius. The heat of her body, even briefly brushed against his side, burns so hot that it stings.
"Good to see you too, Evans!" Sirius calls after her, voice just raised above the din of dozens of others around them. The smile she shoots him in return, one quick and teasing over her shoulder, smacks of a relationship so easy that unavoidable jealousy creeps into James' bloodstream.
Somehow, he knows without question that it's only the first hit of jealousy of the night. He just knows.
"You alright, Prongs?" Sirius asks, and it takes effort to meet his eyes. Surely, if he does, Sirius will see everything he just barely succeeds in balling into a tight bundle in the pit of his stomach.
Still, he tries. "Fine," he says, and his voice sounds more like a stranger's than his own. The urge to ruffle his hair rears its ugly head. "I need a drink."
To his total lack of surprise, Sirius doesn't disagree. If anything, he looks like he understands a little too well.
xxx
He tries to lose her in the crowd, but he can't, of course. Has he ever managed to lose track of her in a sea of people?
No. The answer is no, and he can't begin to spin the reason as anything even remotely friendly. With no other option—no other option he'll dare contemplate, at least—he settles uncomfortably into the once-common spectator sport of Watching Evans, a pastime he's tried to avoid for months. Predictably, he falls back into it with the ease of riding a broom.
He watches her swing her head around, laughing, while she chats with Rhonda Sharpe and the cluster of Ravenclaws she'd abandoned him to seek out.
He watches Slughorn kidnap her and all but tote her around the room, passing from one important connection to the next so he can sing her praises until color blossoms high in her cheeks.
He watches her ignore whatever dig Snape's grimy mates, Rosier and Wilkes and Mucliber and Avery, throw her way when she finally escapes Slughorn's clutches. Her chin tips up, lofty for just the tiniest moment as she lobs something at them, something that looks biting and harsh and truly explosive, before she plucks a drink from the table at their side. She leaves the quartet—and Snape—looking a little stunned.
He watches her take up with Dorcas Meadowes, her mouth tightly held and shoulders tense, and how she allows conversation to wash over her for several minutes before she comes back to herself. She sets aside the Slytherin interaction with such purpose that he can almost see her pick the moment up and throw it behind her. After that, she charts a course back to banter and laughter and smiles.
He watches her touch her hair through it all. Her fingers reach nervously, skim thoughtfully, check carefully. She tucks pieces behind her ear, shakes them back out, twists them back to secure at the nape of her neck, and finally—
He watches as she twirls one curl thoughtlessly around her fingertip as she talks to Abel Kemp, one of Hufflepuff's beaters. A slow, sweet smile crosses her face at something Abel says, and her head rocks back in laughter. Even from across the room, James can see Abel's eyes dip down to the exposed column of her throat.
"You wanna tell me who pissed in your potion?" Sirius asks.
It takes effort to tear his eyes from Abel's lazy smile, but James manages. Barely. "What?"
Sirius lifts a careless hand his way. "You. This. What's your deal?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure. Right. Of course you don't." Sirius takes a swallow of the contents of his glass and grimaces. They've both dosed their drinks with a liberal amounts of Firewhiskey smuggled from their dorm. James' throat burns from it. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Evans, would it?"
A faint note of panic flickers in the back of his mind. "No."
"Because you're just friends, right?"
"Obviously. What are you even—"
"Good. I mean, that's what I told her when she asked me about it, so I'm glad I got it right."
James could swear—then and later, in the years that will follow in which he'll look back upon the night with the fondness of a parent for their favorite child—that the room literally silences all around them, although he logically knows that it doesn't. Still, it feels that way, and so intensely that he'll never manage to recall it any other way.
"I—what?" he demands, a word swiftly repeated when Sirius turns as if to step away. He reaches out a rough hand to grab the back of Sirius' robes. "What?"
Sirius shrugs him off in a graceful twist of his shoulders. "Another drink?" he asks, the question brightly spoken as he literally sidesteps James' own question on light feet. "This punch is shit, but we—"
"Lily asked you what?"
Mocking. Brilliant mocking glitters from Sirius' eyes, a sheen of I-got-you-you-wanker that James can hardly even register past the pounding in his brain. "Nothing, mate. It's not a big deal. Drink?"
"Padfoot, I swear to god—"
It's Lily's threat, one that she'd tossed at James angrily for years, and then interspersed with uses more lightly given, until he'd chased down every last playful way she could aim it his way. Sirius laughs, a loud sound more akin to a shout that comes from deep in his belly, before he slips away into the crowd. It leaves James with two options. One: he can write Sirius off and head in the opposite direction to avoid giving him the satisfaction of his attention. Two: he can swallow his pride, follow him, and threaten or shake or plead—or some combination of the three—until Sirius tells him what the fuck he'd meant.
He doesn't have to contemplate the choice, not even for the span of one frantic heartbeat. Then again, of course he doesn't. As enemies, as friends, as best friends—it's never mattered. When it comes to Lily Evans, he's never had an ounce of pride.
xxx
It takes a combination of two of those aspects—threatening and pleading, but remarkably no shaking—for Sirius to reveal everything to him.
"Kemp asked her to go with him, you know," Sirius explains, a drink in each hand. He'd had James fetch him two—each at separate times, of course—in exchange for his knowledge, and he doesn't even try to hide the mirth that reads on every feature of his face. "To the party tonight. He's been trying to chat her up for weeks, although she's acted a good oblivious game like she doesn't understand what he's up to. No idea how he's buying it, honestly. She's top of our year, so it's not like he doesn't know that she's scary smart."
James can only stare, jaw slack, eyes wide, and so precariously perched on his feet that a sudden shift of bodies behind him almost sends him hurtling into Sirius. The culprit apologizes, but he can't even register the words from the blushing Ravenclaw. "What?" he demands, the question croaked. "There's—no. No, you're taking the piss. She would have told me. We're—"
"Friends, yeah? Best friends?" Sirius scoffs. "She's not about to talk to you about blokes, Prongs."
A simple question, why?, sits dormant on James' tongue. "But—you? She'd tell you?"
Sirius shrugs, apparently entirely unbothered by the skepticism that James knows leaks from his every pore. "Well, sure. I'm an excellent confidant. You could try it sometime, and admit—at least to me—that you're completely fucked over her and not happy playing the role of her mate."
"That's—" The breath James sucks in comes sharp and hot. "That's not what we're talking about here. You said—you said she asked if we were just friends, and you told her—"
"Oh, that?" Again, Sirius shrugs, although he can't even feign the casual coolness that the gesture imparts. He looks thrilled—like Christmas has come early; like his birthday waits just around the corner; like Snape has just suffered some horrible, embarrassing accident that he hasn't even had to set up—as James shifts his weight impatiently. "Well, yeah, of course I told her I thought the two of you were just friends. That's what you've always said when the lads and I have asked you, isn't it?"
"What did she—"
"Isn't that what you've always said, Prongs?"
The second time around, the question stops James up short. For a moment, as the party surges all around them, he and Sirius merely stare at each other.
"I—yes." He swallows. "Yes, but—"
But what else could he have said to Sirius and Remus and Peter after literal years of them taking the piss out of him for the depth and desperation of his early crush on her? To finally halt that ribbing, good-natured or not, with a wave of his hands and a we're just friends, fuck off had solved many of his problems. Not only that—
Not only that, but saying it aloud over and over and over and over had almost certainly helped him achieve some sort of peace with the fact that he could at least have some sort of relationship with Lily, even if it had fallen under the label of 'best friends.'
Sirius waits, eyebrows high on his head, with more patience than James often sees. Far more patience. Clearly, he enjoys the battle that rages in James' chest, in his throat, in his mind, and he makes no attempt to hide it.
After a beat, Sirius goes on—although if he does so out of pity, or to twist the knife further, James doesn't know. "So, that's what I told her when she asked," he says. He takes a drink from the goblet in his left hand, and then the one in his right. "I told her what you're always saying—you know, that you're just friends—and she—"
"What did she ask?"
"What she should say to Kemp." Sirius pauses, the pull of his mouth a mockery of careful contemplation. "I think she said something like, 'He's fit and he's funny and if he would have asked me last year, I would have said yes immediately—'"
That answers the question quite neatly, and James feel the knife twist with Sirius' words.
"—and then she said something like, 'Is there any reason I should say no?' It took me a while to get her to explain what the fuck that meant—you know how stubborn she can be, and she obviously didn't want to keep going—"
He'd loved that stubbornness about her from the moment they'd met, even if it had made him laugh at eleven in a way that felt entirely different than it did at seventeen.
"—but I got it out of her eventually." The twist of Sirius' mouth goes suddenly, decidedly cocky. "I've gotten pretty good at that, actually. We spend a lot of time together when you're at Quidditch practice."
He's never heard even a whisper of that before—not from Sirius, not from Lily, not from Remus or Peter, not from any one of her friends—and it hits him with a ringing slap of betrayal. "You never once said—"
"Dunno why I would have. She's my mate too, and that's all you are, isn't it? It's not like I tell you every time I have a private chat with Moony or Wormtail or Dorcas or Mary."
"Yes, but—"
They've run, yet again, into the cusp of the issue. Sirius waits as James dangles feet-first off of an impossibly high precipice.
"It's not the same," he says finally. "Padfoot, you know it's not the same."
"Sure it is. You've been preaching that line for a while, haven't you? Anyway—" Sirius takes another drink. "I told her she might as well go for it with Kemp. Seems an alright bloke, and he's obviously not the sort who might miss it if she drops a ton of hints his way. You know, like if she asked him if he had plans for Hogsmeade, and made it very clear that she didn't. I don't think he's one to say, 'Oh, I'm just going with the lads.'"
Even as Sirius speaks, James can see the scene play out in his head, the same conversation that had passed between him and Lily at breakfast in November. His mouth, already painfully dry, suddenly spikes with bitter adrenaline.
Sirius continues, as if he hasn't heard the short, inhuman noise that James has barely just stifled in his throat. "And he'd probably catch on if his Quidditch schedule suddenly stopped conflicting with her patrol nights and she asked him to walk with her basically every time."
That had started even earlier in the term, way back in early October. James had never questioned why, or hesitated to join Lily when she'd asked.
"And he'd probably wise up real quick if she made sure that there was space next to her on the couch every night—although he's not in our house, so I don't know how that would work. Still, I bet he'd pick up on it, and I bet he'd jump all over it—all over her, I guess."
He's owned that spot next to her near the fire in the common room, and had even back to the previous spring.
"Padfoot, just—shut up for a second, will you?" A muscle throbs in James' head. "I need—fuck, you're saying—"
Reality strikes with a blow that feels physical.
"You told her to go for it with him?" he asks, and so loudly that more than one head swivels their way. He doesn't notice.
Sirius does, although he looks more delighted than abashed. "'Course I did. It'd be nice to see her happy with somebody. I mean, it's been a while, hasn't it? Since you two started really becoming friends, seems like." He lets that hang for the barest of a second, yet another tidbit of seemingly infinitesimal information that's still enough to stun James speechless, before he presses on. "Like I said, she's my friend, and that's what friends do, right? They're happy for each other with shit like this? Tell me if I'm wrong, Prongs."
He doesn't hesitate. "What—of course you're wrong. How can you—you fucking wanker, you know I'm mad about her. I have been for years, and that doesn't just stop—"
Sirius doesn't hesitate either. No matter the fury in James' tone, the red surely crawling up his face, the rage creeping steadily north from the tips of his toes, Sirius places a hand on his shoulder and turns him around, the action surprisingly gentle. "You better go tell her that," he says, his voice no longer amused.
James' rage falls away in an instant, gone in the same breath that Sirius' grin vanishes.
Lily stands with Abel not far away, and James can just make out the sight of them in between several feet of mingling bodies. Abel has her in a cozy spot near the door, and he holds one of her hands in his own, his fingers laced lightly through hers. They speak in quiet voices, heads ducked intimately together and faced towards the floor, and an icy-cold burst of fear floods through his gut when Lily glances up at Abel with a question in the smile that lingers over her mouth.
He's seen her look at other blokes that way. How could he not? He'd sought the high score in the game of Watching Evans from early adolescence. Yet—
Had she ever looked up at him that way, all promise and thick lashes? She must have, she must have, if Sirius tells the truth, but—
How the fuck had he missed it?
"I figured—" For the first time, a hint of uncertainty clouds Sirius' tone. James wants to look at him, yearns to tear his eyes from Abel's thumb passing over the ridges of Lily's knuckles, but can't. "I don't know. I figured, either this'll make her happy and her friends will be happy for her, or—anyone who isn't just her friend, who isn't okay with it—maybe it'll kick his arse into gear. Although, anyone who isn't okay with it better go do something now, because—Prongs, he's clearly trying to talk her into leaving with him, and she might go. Look, don't be an idiot—go over there before she leaves—"
She balances on the cusp of it, a decision that will alter the course of—well, what feels like James' entire life. He sees it all over the uncertain pull of her mouth, the waffling way she shifts between her feet, the reluctant smile Abel pulls from her with some quietly-spoken word, something James can nearly hear, even though he stands too far away to actually make it out. "Just a walk," he can almost hear Abel say, and he can imagine his tone exact. They're mates, after all, or at least friendly from years of Quidditch competition. He's heard him speak often and on many subjects. "Just a walk, and I'll bring you right back. I promise."
Except James knows how walks in Hogwarts' corridors typically go—even though he's taken dozens, maybe hundreds, with Lily and has never dared to so much as touch her. It doesn't matter. He's walked with other girls, just like she's walked with other lads. He knows that those walks lead to hands held—although they're already holding hands, right there in the middle of the fucking party—and then kisses exchanged, and then bodies pressed into hidden alcoves.
The thought of that happening with Lily and Abel—hell, with Lily and anyone but him—sends a wave of nausea crashing so heavily over James' body that he almost chokes on it.
"Prongs." It sounds like a final warning, given sharply from Sirius' mouth.
That doesn't spur him to action. What spurs him to action—something he'll try to explain to Lily later, although it will come out clumsily worded no matter how much thought he gives it—is Abel's hand reaching for her hair. He threads a loose tendril of fire behind Lily's ear—a motion James has never dared to try, although the desire haunts his dreams—and that does it.
"About time—" he hears Sirius say as he leaves him behind without a second thought, although he also somehow doesn't quite hear him at the same time. Blood pulses in his ears, as it hasn't since—fuck, maybe since fifth year, when he'd often seen her laughing with Snape and had just barely suppressed the urge to perform some reckless or homicidal act. He'd done his best to tamp down on those impulses in the early months of sixth year, but it all comes flooding back—irritation, irrational irritation; frustration, irrational frustration; jealousy, seriously irrational jealousy—as he weaves around individuals and clusters of people, more than one who greets him by name. He hardly hears that either, and gives no indication that he does.
Lily doesn't jerk back from Abel when he reaches their sides, although James wishes she would. He wants to see her drop Abel's stupid hand and watch regret flood the pretty sweetness of her expression, but neither happens. Her eyes widen a fraction of an inch as they sweep across whatever storm brews on his face, but she otherwise doesn't move.
Their clasped hands look even more foul and nauseating close up.
"You okay, Potter?" Abel asks, and James spies the briefest hint of a question on his brow before sudden understanding clicks into place. Before James' eyes, Abel gets it. Based on the sigh that follows, deep and weary, he fully expects what follows.
"Stellar," James says flatly. Lily hasn't caught Abel's understanding, at least not in what James can see. "Evans, can I borrow you?"
She hesitates. Time elapses, stretches out across his brittle nerves, as her brilliant eyes jump back and forth between each of his. "Right now?" she asks finally. "Seriously, right now?"
If he gives himself even of a fraction of a second, just the barest moment to question why she sounds a little annoyed, he knows he won't manage the Gryffindor courage to continue.
So he doesn't—allow himself a second, that is. He continues, of course, with the courage of Godric.
"Yes," he says, the word spoken almost before she finishes her second question. "Right now. Kemp, do you mind?"
The second it leaves his mouth, he wishes he hadn't asked it, because it offers Abel a moment to actually protest. He does mind, clearly, the answer evident all over the tense hold of his jaw. "Well, we were actually about to go get some air—"
James had known it.
Irrational irritation crests and breaks. "Sorry, let me rephrase. Evans, do you mind? Because you're the one I'm asking."
She could tell him to bugger off. She's had years of practice at it, and has told him the same in hundreds of creative ways, from serious to teasing and back again.
For a second, a frown creases her face to the point that he thinks that she will. Her red lips part, certainly about to demand some form of what the fuck is wrong with you?, but then—
She doesn't. "Sure. Sure, just—okay." Victory floods his veins as she wipes her expression, clearly a concerted effort, and disengages her fingers from Abel's. "I'll come find you in a second."
She addresses the latter part to Abel solely, but he knows better. He knows better because of something he sees in James' face, not hers, and James watches that register with a further flash of victory. "Sure," Abel echoes, and he drifts away with a grace that James might have appreciated in any other circumstance.
He can't appreciate it. Not then. "Walk with me," he says.
Her eyes narrow quickly, to the point of poisonous slits. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she hisses, and—
It doesn't exactly quell his sense of victory, even if heady irritation lingers. He knows her well, obviously, well enough to predict her words exact. Still, even though he knows her well, he also kind of wants to shout at her.
Or at Sirius.
Or at himself.
He's not entirely sure.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he shoots back, words spoken heatedly under his breath. "Were you seriously about to leave with him?"
"I—" Color rises, flooding her cheeks. "So what if I was? It's none of your business if I take a walk with someone. I don't know what you're playing at, but it's—"
"A walk? Evans, you're not stupid. You know what he meant by that, and you—"
"Yeah? Well, you just asked the same thing—no, demanded the same thing. What do you mean by it?"
The question stops everything—his frustration, his fury, his victory—entirely short.
It had escaped her by accident. He sees that in her sudden, sharp inhalation, one he recognizes well from all the times they've pushed each other too far and said things one of them regrets.
"Just—forget it," she says before he can respond. "Forget it. I don't want to hear it, whatever you're—"
"I'm asking you—" He hesitates, just one final fraction, before he takes the plunge. "I'm asking you to take the kind of walk with me that stops me from making a scene here, because—I'll make it otherwise."
Her mouth opens, some biting response already halfway out before his words catch up with her. She freezes, and her answer shifts, as does her tone. "What kind of scene?" she asks. The question holds a sudden, timid note.
"The kind—"
For the second time that night, her eyes slide past his shoulder. Yet, this time, she doesn't move.
"Oh, that dickhead," she whispers, and her hands clench by her sides. He knows, without the need to turn around, that Sirius watches them. He can feel his eyes piercing his back. "What—fuck, what did Sirius say to you?"
He answers honestly. "A lot of things. I think he took at least a year off my life. Two or three seems more likely."
Her flush travels down her face, into her neck, and then floods her chest. The constellations over the swells of her breasts tinge pink, like a sky at sunset. "Listen, James—" As always, her lips look beautiful forming his name, even though the tinge of desperation in her voice mars it slightly. "This doesn't need to be some drawn-out thing. I'm glad we're friends. I'm sure you owe me some moment of rejection, but—can we not? We don't need to talk about whatever Sirius told you—that dickhead. We can just—"
Scary smart, Sirius had called her. Laughter whooshes from James' lungs, exhaled under his breath. He'll certainly never think of her that way again, not when she's misread things so spectacularly, although—
Although, fuck, for how long—and just how often—had he done the exact same thing?
"No. Not like that. Not that kind of scene." As he speaks, a curl tumbles loose near her temple, one kept carefully pinned before that moment. It falls in front of her face, and for the first time—
He doesn't even think about it, really. He brushes the curl backwards without a second thought, tucking it behind the shell of her ear. His fingers shake just the slightest amount, although if it comes from excitement or nerves or just adrenaline broadly, he doesn't know. When his hand lingers on her face, skimming along the line of her jaw before tracing down her neck, she feels him tremble, and she understands then.
"Oh," she says. "Oh." Something breaks abruptly open on her face, some new spark of delight that's unlike anything he's ever seen before. He can only think, rather dimly, of a sun suddenly bursting through a canopy of clouds. "But—Sirius said—"
"I know. I know, he—fuck, he's an idiot—no, I'm an idiot, but—"
But thank Merlin for Sirius, truly, and his convoluted, high-risk plan that could have backfired spectacularly in his face—and her face, and James' face. Especially James' face. He would have deserved it, had it happened.
Yet she looks almost like she thinks she doesn't deserve it, doesn't deserve him, as he brushes at another curl, this one which ghosts the side of her neck. "James—" she sighs, and his heart flutters in a familiar way he's tried to ignore for months. Her hair slips between his fingers like a silken ribbon, and it takes effort not to ask her to say his name like that a thousand times more. "What kind of walk?"
Mischief has started to glitter in her eyes again, the same mischief that sparkles when she breaks curfew with him to stargaze or sneak to the kitchens or explore passageways, or helps him plot some piece of trouble against the Slytherins, or sneaks into their dorm early on mornings after the full moon to make sure they're all alive. Yet, this time, it tugs something further down than the familiar longing that coils in his stomach, and anticipation floods his mouth.
"Come with me," he says. "Come with me, and I'll show you."
His hand travels up of its own accord, cradles the delicate point of her chin, and then he caresses her mouth with the single pass of his thumb. He takes her hand in his free one, and the action comes as easy as breathing, no hesitation as he winds his fingers through hers. Truly, more hesitation grows from the soft feeling of her breath against his pad of his thumb. He could happily stand there with her forever, her hand tucked in his and her brilliantly-red lips parted against his hand. It's all so good, so wonderful, so perfect, that he can hardly even imagine that anything better might follow.
Her throat bobs, her swallow noisy, and she destroys that assumption in one fell swoop. "I have a lot of things I want to show you," she says, and it doesn't take anything else. He curses, a single fuck just barely given under his breath, and turns to pull her through the crowd towards the door.
Somewhere, there's an alcove hidden in the dark depths of the castle with their names on it.