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In retrospect, the warning signs were there in March. But familiarity had bred, if not contempt, then complacence, and Remus had spent seven years with James’s sighs, Sirius’s calculating looks, and Pete’s need for a leader. If James was sighing longer and harder, if Sirius was making louder and more obvious overtures to Evans, if Pete was sidling up to Remus and saying do you think we should do anything about..., it was just more of the same.
So he was entirely unprepared when he woke up on what was supposed to be a lovely lazy Sunday and found Sirius and Pete sitting on the edge of his bed, holding up a sign that said INTERVENTION. There was a heart over the second I. Remus briefly, violently wished that he’d slipped off the boat in first year and drowned in the lake.
“Remus,” said Sirius urgently. “We leave school in four months.”
Remus rubbed his eyes. “Do you think I’m going to develop a smack habit before graduation, or is this intervention meant to halt the passage of linear time?”
“James and Lily,” began Peter, and then Remus lay back down and pulled the pillow over his head.
Thirty seconds of tussling later, Sirius had both pillows in his hands and Remus had given up resisting the inevitable. “I don’t care about James and Lily,” he moaned, but it was no use.
“He’s our friend,” said Sirius. “And if he doesn’t at least try it with her, then he’s going to be pining for the rest of his life.”
“That seems...” insane, Remus wanted to say. “A tad dramatic.”
“It’s the truth, Moony. He’s got to get this done now, because as soon as Evans isn’t a captive audience he’s going to have no chance to impress her anymore, and she’ll be completely done with him. And he’ll date other girls, but he’ll always be comparing them to her, and none of them will live up because he’ll have created this shining ideal of her in his head, and before you know it we’ll all be fifty-five and having Christmas at Pete’s and James will be whisky-drunk and bemoaning about how his whole life would have been different if only Lily would have given him a chance, and then I’ll kill him, Remus! I’ll kill him and I’ll go to Azkaban forever, and then you’ll die and Pete will be left alone with no whimsy in the world, and then he’ll become boring! Do you want that, Remus? Is that the future you want?”
“Why do we have to have Christmas at mine?” said Pete.
Sirius waved his hand. “I’m going to disappear mysteriously in my early thirties, and Remus has no festive spirit.”
There was little point trying to talk Sirius down from his vividly imagined futures. Remus rubbed his eyes. “Fine, he has left it a little close to the deadline. But what do you expect me to do about it?”
“We need a plan,” said Pete.
“ I have plans,” grumbled Sirius, “but Pete says he doesn’t trust me without supervision.”
“So you came to me?” said Remus.
“We normally go to James,” said Pete. “But he’s the problem here.”
“And I was somehow your first choice?”
Sirius shrugged. “We asked Dorcas and Marlene first, but they said no.”
“Fine,” said Remus. He snatched back one of the pillows and propped himself up on it. “Tell me your plans. But I have veto power.”
“You get one veto,” said Sirius.
“I get infinite vetoes, thank you.”
“You can have six vetoes,” said Pete. “That’s a nice round number.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Remus. “Ten.”
“Eight,” said Sirius.
“Nine.”
“Fine.”
They shook on it.
Remus’s second big mistake was using up all of his vetoes too early.
“You understand this is something James has already asked me to do a million times?” he said, aghast, as he stumbled into his socks.
“Yes,” said Pete, “but you’ve always said no.”
Which was an uncharacteristically reasonable point, even if it led to Remus sitting in the library with Lily and psyching himself up just to make a tit of himself.
“So you know James.”
“No,” said Lily, not looking up from her books.
“You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?”
“I’ve never heard of a James in my life.”
“Please just hear me out.”
“Honestly, I don’t even think ‘James’ is a real name.”
“What if I gave you a chocolate frog? Would that sway you?”
She looked up suspiciously. “Do you have a chocolate frog?”
“Um.” He felt around desperately in his pockets. “Give me a second - “
Lily swept her books into her bag. “You are the worst negotiator I’ve ever met. Also, I’m mad at you.”
“Wait,” he said, but she was already walking away. He raised his voice as she stalked through the library. “I can steal one from Pete!”
“You’re so bad at this,” said Sirius. “If you can’t get a girlfriend for James, how the hell are you going to get a boyfriend for yourself?”
Remus threw an apple core at his head. “You’re horrible. Commence plan eleven.”
James was halfway through a rambling monologue on voter reform when Peter suddenly piped in with, “Hey, maybe we should try gambling!”
Remus put his head in his hands and added his third mistake to the list: Leaving this part up to Pete.
“What a great idea, Pete!” Sirius was beaming. “I just love the idea of engaging in wagers. Don’t you, Remus?”
“No.”
“Are you sure, Remus?”
Remus lifted his weary head and intoned, “I’ve heard there’s this great Muggle game called poker.”
“What a marvellous idea,” said Sirius. “James, how would you feel about a poker night?”
“Oh, bagsy an invite,” said Marlene immediately. “I want to watch Sirius lose his shirt.”
Sirius winked. “Don’t need poker for that. Just a bottle of firewhiskey and that little red dress you wore - “
“I hate you all,” said Dorcas. “Count me in. Mary?”
“Sure,” said Mary, mouth full of peas.
“I’m really not sure about - “ said James.
“OI, EVANS!” bellowed Sirius, towards the end of the table. “DO YOU WANT TO HUMILIATE POTTER IN A MUGGLE GAME?”
“NO,” yelled Lily.
“YEAH YOU DO. SEE YOU AT SIX IN THE COMMON ROOM.”
“Oi,” said James. “Why am I going to be humiliated?”
“YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DROWNED AT BIRTH, BLACK,” yelled Lily.
“NOW YOU’RE JUST QUOTING MY MOTHER.”
The plan was simple, according to Sirius. “James has no poker face,” he explained, “and a competitive streak a mile wide. So we just let him lose and lose and lose until he bets his shirt, let Lily see those rippling quidditch abs, she’ll be consumed with lust, and they’ll be snogging by next week.”
Mistake four, therefore, was listening to Sirius. Mistake five was assuming that James Potter would ever lose at anything.
“He’s a legilimens,” said Dorcas, staring down at her measly pile of galleons. “It’s the only explanation.”
“And she’s worse,” scowled Marlene, shivering in her bra.
James was wearing Peter’s shirt over his own, Sirius’s trousers tied around his neck like a cape, and Marlene’s blouse in a makeshift turban over his head. Lily, who was slightly less gloating but equally as evil, had a pile of clothes next to her that she kept petting like a beloved pet. Aside from Remus, who had quickly developed a habit of betting low and folding early, they were the only ones still fully clothed.
“I miss dignity,” said Peter.
“I wasn’t aware you ever had any,” said Mary.
“Raise,” said Lily, pushing another five galleons into the circle. That was all either of them had said for the last fifteen minutes – raise, see, call it. It was like watching two sharks circle each other. They were all going to die.
Pete and Sirius were giving Remus anxious looks – because apparently he was in charge now. Remus yawned obnoxiously. “Wow, would you look at the time? It’s getting a little late, so perhaps we could just - “
“See or raise, Potter,” said Lily, and James said “ All in,” and shoved his winnings forwards.
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Ballsy.”
“Too ballsy for you?”
“Nothing is too ballsy for me, Potter. I live and breathe ballsy.”
“Is no one going to make a joke about balls?” said Sirius.
“And take away your fun?” said Dorcas, lying flat on her back with her eyes closed.
“I can’t keep carrying this friendship group on my back, Meadows. It’s simply not fair. I’m crumbling under the weight.”
“All in,” said Lily. “Go on, Potter, show me what you’ve got.”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Yes, because those are literally the rules of poker,” said Remus.
James revealed his cards with a flourish. “Two pairs, queens and eights. Read ‘em and weep.”
“You’re going to be the only one weeping, Potter,” said Lily, and flung down her own cards. “Full house.”
“Oh damn,” breathed Marlene. “Gut him, girl.”
“My mother taught me to play,” said Lily. “And the clothes too, Potter.”
“Perhaps you’d like to take James’s clothes as well?” said Sirius, a little desperately.
“Padfoot,” gasped James. “Whose side are you on?”
Lily wrinkled her nose as she handed Marlene and Pete their shirts. “Oh, pass.”
Sirius groaned. “Can I at least have my trousers back?”
“No,” said Lily, sweetly.
Remus had a beautiful leather-bound notebook, a birthday-slash-guilt gift from Sirius back in fifth year. It seemed appropriate that he was now using to record his own mistakes.
Mistake six, written while he was recovering in a hospital bed: Letting Sirius near fireworks.
Mistake seven had a splotch of raspberry jam on the page next to him, the same jam that was dripping off his shirt – Toast is not a romantic food.
Mistake eight, on its own sodden page – THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE OF THE GIANT SQUID THIS ONE ISN’T EVEN MY FAULT WHAT THE FUCK DUMBLEDORE WHAT THE FUCK.
Overall, he’d say his final term at Hogwarts was going pretty well.
“So,” said Lily, sitting in the dark as James tried yet another unlocking charm on the doors of the cupboard. “I take it you haven’t told your friends that we’re dating.”
“This is just pathetic,” said James. “Locking us in together, honestly. Where’s the originality? Where’s the spark? I’m ashamed to call them Marauders.”
“You should be ashamed to call yourselves that full stop. It’s like you’re a really shitty boy band.”
“Excuse you.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “We’d be an excellent boy band. I’d be lead singer, obviously.”
“You can’t sing though.”
“Neither can Dylan.”
“Don’t let Remus hear you say that.”
James gave up on the door and collapsed next to her. “I really am sorry about this, you know. I’ll talk to them, tell them to cut it out.”
She shuffled closer, laid her head on his shoulder. “If you want... we could tell them. I don’t mind.”
James had gone very still next to her, but she pressed on. “Seriously, they’re your best friends. You shouldn’t have to hide from them like this. When I said I wanted to keep it quiet - “
He found her hand, squeezed it. “Lils, I don’t mind. This is all really new, and I get that they can be – well, exactly like they’re being now.”
“That’s not why I wanted to – they're not why. They can know. I just wanted to - “ She stopped. “You’re going to think I’m a coward if I say this.”
“All these years, Evans, and you still don’t know me.” He kissed her on the cheek, the lightest brush. “I would never think you’re a coward. You’re so, so impossibly brave.”
“It would get worse,” she said, all in a rush. It felt like cutting herself open. “All those comments about my family, about my blood – they don’t really care about me now, not properly, I’m not enough of a threat to them. But the second they find out I’m dating you, a proper pureblood – it's going to be knives, teeth, claws. You know what they say about muggleborn girls anyway. The - “ She stopped. She couldn’t voice it – Angelica Rowle, turning to her in fifth year, drawling about Potter’s whore. “We’re out of here in a few months, and then it won’t matter. If I see them in the street and they want to say something shitty, I can walk away. But here, I’m - I’m trapped with them, and their comments, and - “
“Lils.” He pulled her closer, kissed her forehead, her temple. “Lils, baby, it’s ok. I understand. I won’t let them hurt you. Whatever it takes, I won’t let them hurt you.”
She grabbed him by the collar and reeled him in for a proper kiss. It was like nothing she’d ever known, this – this feeling. He was warmth and life and strength, all poured into her hands, and briefly she let herself think of the question she’d asked, half-tipsy and desperately casual, at the last girl’s wine night – how do you know when you’re in love?
And then a voice said - “Oh my god. We did it.”
She’d been so distracted by James that she hadn’t heard the door open. James rested his forehead against hers and sighed, slowly, “ Fuuuuuuuck.”
Peter was beaming. Remus was aghast. Sirius posed on the balls of his feet, arms in the air.
“We,” said Sirus. “Are. GENIUSES! You see this, Lupin? You see? We are love gods. We are Cupid incarnate. We are the best friends in the entire world.”
“Good to see you’re all being very normal about this,” said James.
“I am going to have my portrait painted and hung in the halls!” yelled Sirius. “On the frame – Sirius Black, romance wizard. They’ll be talking of this for generations. Every time someone is unlucky in love, they’ll pray to me.”
“And us,” said Peter. “We did things too.”
“No,” said Remus. “We didn’t. We didn’t do anything.”
Sirius tackled him into a hug. “Lupin, Lupin, look at them! James Potter and Lily Evans! In the cupboard we locked them in! Snogging! And to think you said that it was a stupid idea - “
“We didn’t do anything,” said Remus. “That isn’t James’s victory face. That is the face of a lying liar who’s been lying for the entire year.”
“Three months, actually,” said James, managing to look a little sheepish.
“What does he mean?” said Peter.
“It means,” said Remus, turning a little purple, “that they’ve been together the entire time.”
James shrugged. “Yeah, sorry. We were keeping it secret because - “
“Oh, yes, tell me the reason,” seethed Remus. “I’m just saying, it better be a brilliant reason. I’m talking Romeo-and-Juliet, forbidden romance level reason. Because otherwise I have spent the entire month losing half my money - “
“I’ll give it back,” said Lily.
“And getting covered in various foodstuffs, and having six of my bones regrown, and stealing from Peter’s chocolate stash - “
“You what?” said Peter.
“There is still a warrant for my arrest out in mermaid society, and they have the fucking death penalty! I’m going to have to avoid large bodies of water for the rest of my life!”
“You can’t even swim,” said James.
Remus screeched to the heavens and started kicking the walls.
“But - “ Sirius was looking between the two of them so fast that his face was a blur. “How? When? She hates you.”
“He’s growing on me,” said Lily.
“How?” said Sirius, tenacious as a ratcatcher.
“He got me a book from a high shelf in the library late one night,” said Lily.
“And then she jumped me,” said James.
“I put my hand on your waist.”
“And the snogging?”
“You initiated that.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
Remus slammed his hand on the cupboard. “You got her a book? You got her a book and that’s all it took? Eleventy-million schemes and plans and literal crimes, and you just picked something up off a shelf? Nope, fuck it, that’s it. You don’t deserve her, James, you didn’t put nearly enough effort in. Evans, you’re officially my girlfriend now.”
“Aren’t you gay?” said Lily.
“I will consign myself to a loveless marriage if it means pissing James off.”
“All right,” said James, standing up quickly. “Look, I’m sorry you’re hurt, but we had to keep it secret, ok? There are good reasons - “
“No,” said Lily, suddenly vividly clear. It was all coming to her, like a spell fitting together for the first time. “No, there aren’t.”
She stood up and grabbed James’s hand, turning to the others. “I’m his girlfriend. Tell everyone.”
“Lily,” said James, a little warning, a little lost. She knew he was going to repeat her own words back to her – about the snobbery, and the jibes, and the little time they had left before they wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. But none of it mattered. It was so clear now – had been since the second she’d looked up and seen Sirius’s jubilant face. None of that could ever stack up to how it felt to stand in front of the world and hold James Potter’s hand.
“I want you,” she said. “I don’t care about the rest. I’m yours, James. I’m yours.”
“I love you,” blurted James, and then he went panicked and started to stutter, but he didn’t have a chance to speak, because Lily was pulling him down and kissing him, kissing him, kissing.