Work Text:
If his mother were here, she would scold him with that unrelenting steadiness of hers, and remind him that he is better than this, that he must be better than this. If his father were here, he would not need words at all, only that look—the one James has been seeing since he was small, and it still pierces him through and leaves him unable to breathe until he has corrected himself.
But there is no one here now, no hand to guide, no gaze to steady, only James to feel disappointed in himself, and oh, does he.
He remembers the last time he felt so much disgust for himself, when it curdled in his stomach in this specific way and made his hands shake, and how somehow, against all reason, forgiveness had been granted him then by the one person whose forgiveness should never have been possible.
Perhaps that was the true undoing, the turning point, because if she had not forgiven him, if she had not allowed him the smallest piece of her grace, perhaps she would not be stitched into every corner of his thoughts. And perhaps he would not be in this situation at all.
Well, he supposes that’s not entirely fair. He might still be in this situation because getting Lily Evans out of the brain has proven to be a near impossible task, and he doesn’t think her choosing not to forgive and befriend him would have actually changed that.
“Hello?”
He definitely hasn’t lost enough blood to be hallucinating, but something must be going on because he absolutely shouldn’t be hearing Lily Evans’s voice in the boys’ changing room.
“Potter? Are you in here?” Her footsteps are soft against the tiles, and the sound of them is unbearable, because with every step she comes closer, and he is not ready, will never be ready. “How do I turn on the bloody light?”
He stays frozen, holding his breath, and then there she is, breaking through the dark with the smallest glow of lumos, her wand raised, her face half-lit and unreadable, gaze sharp.
“Where’s your shirt?” she asks, and the question is so ordinary, so utterly her , that he wants to laugh, though his throat will not allow it.
He glances to the floor where the shirt lies discarded, reaches half-heartedly for it, and stops at once when she speaks again.
“It’s fine,” she says.
Her eyes move to the mess of his face, to the cut and the swelling and the bruising he has tried not to think about. “That looks pretty bad.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he says, and the words sound ridiculous and petulant even to his own ears.
Her mouth tilts, not quite a smile, not quite pity. “So he does speak,” she murmurs, before stepping closer, the light of her wand catching against the curve of her cheek. “Budge over.”
Before he can even think about her request, she is already sliding onto the narrow bench beside him, straddling the wood, and he feels his body jerk back instinctively, because he too is straddling the bench and suddenly they are far, far too close, so close that he can feel the brush of her sleeve against his arm and it occurs to him, absurdly, to wonder how in Merlin’s name he ended up here—an empty, dark changing room, bleeding, humiliated, and mere inches away from Lily Evans.
“Look this way,” she commands.
“Evans—”
“I’ll be quick,” she says, impatient already, and before he can argue she presses two fingers under his chin, light as anything, tilting his head until he has no choice but to meet her eyes.
She clicks her teeth, dissatisfied at what she sees, then sets to work.
He cannot tear his gaze from her lips as they move in quiet incantations, the syllables shaping healing magic that prickles warm and sharp beneath his skin. It’s working, he can feel it, the ache dulling, the sting fading, but none of that matters, not when all he can think is how she is brilliant and extraordinary and she always has been.
“Here,” she says, breaking the spell of his thoughts as she reaches for the crumpled shirt on the floor. “Make yourself useful.”
He knows what she wants immediately, without words, and his wand is in his hand before he thinks about it, transfiguring the shirt into a towel. She takes it without comment, only leans even closer, so close the line of her hair nearly brushes his cheek, and begins to dab gently at the blood along his brow.
The sting makes him hiss, and her mouth turns down at once, softening. “Sorry,” she murmurs, and it is so quiet, that he closes his eyes rather than risk the wreckage of seeing her face so close and believing she feels even a fraction of what he does.
It is only when her hand falls away that he dares to open them again, and still she is there, impossibly close, so near he can feel the warmth of her body in the cold air of the changing room.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says quickly, turning his head from her, because if she’s here then someone told her where to find him, and if someone told her, then there’s an almost guaranteed chance she already knows it was Augustine Goodman he fought with.
And it doesn’t take a genius to put the rest together.
“This is quite the production,” she says, her voice edging into dry amusement. “No lights, empty room. Did you send everyone away just so you could wallow? Bit of a dictatorial use of your captaining authority, don’t you think?”
“Evans,” he sighs, weary..
“I heard…” she trails off, and when he glances back, she’s wringing the transfigured towel between her hands, twisting it hard. “Was it Augie?”
James exhales. “Yeah.”
She nods, slow and measured, chewing at her lip. “Was it…” She gives a small, disbelieving scoff. “I’ll feel insufferably conceited if the answer’s no, but—”
“It was about you,” he says, before she can finish, because there’s no point in lying about this part.
“Oh.” She blinks once. “Right.”
“He was being a prick.”
“I figured,” she says evenly, and then she lifts her gaze to him, steady, unflinching. “In what way specifically?”
He hesitates, every muscle tightening, because he doesn’t want this conversation—but he also knows he cannot say no to her, not when she’s looking at him like that.
“He was talking about your date. And…after.” His shoulders twitch with discomfort, his hands restless on his knees. “Sometimes the guys in here, they—talk about girls, and it’s not good. I try to shut it down when I can, but—”
Lily nods once, waiting, her silence sharper than any interruption. “What was he saying?”
“Lily,” James sighs.
Her posture straightens, her chin lifting. “I want to know.”
“It wasn’t anything worth repeating, believe me.”
Her voice is firmer now, cutting through the dark. “I’d like to know, James.”
He takes a breath, bracing. “He was describing the more…intimate parts of your date.” The words taste foul in his mouth. Just remembering Goodman’s voice, and the ugly cackle that followed, makes his stomach twist again.
“He described us having sex,” Lily says, the words delivered with a kind of cool, clinical detachment that makes him wince.
He nods, miserable, hating that he’s the one who has to confirm it.
And then she laughs, sudden and sharp, and it startles him so badly his head jerks to look at her.
“We didn’t have sex,” she says, shaking her head, a dry snort escaping her.
He blinks, stunned. “You…didn’t?”
“And it wasn’t even a date. We were studying, and then tried to kiss me,” she says with another laugh, bitter this time. “I turned my head and he got shirty with me after that. His pride was wounded, I suppose. No wonder he leapt at the chance to tell anyone who’d listen that he’d got a leg over me.”
The heat flares in James’s chest before he even thinks. “Dickhead,” he bites out, low and furious.
“Certainly,” Lily says at once, but then her eyes narrow, fixing him in place. “You punched him?”
He swallows, and nods.
“Why?”
He gives her a look. “He’s an arse.”
“That’s the only reason?”
James shifts his gaze away, heat creeping up his neck. “And you’re my friend, obviously.”
There is a stretch of silence that follows where James wishes he could do something other than sit here, like go turn on the lights or run far, far away.
“Can you look at me for a second?” she asks him, quietly.
“I don’t want to,” he mutters, pouting, and he hates how childish he sounds.
She laughs, the sound light and cutting all at once, and it only irritates him further. “Were you jealous?”
His head snaps back to her, eyes wide. “What?”
“Were you?”
“Was—” He blinks hard. “What?”
She rolls her eyes like he’s being particularly thick. “Will you stop acting so grumpy if I kiss you right now?”
“What?” he yelps again, far too loud, far too much like he’s thirteen and not seventeen.
She slows down, each word deliberate, torturous. “Will. You. Still—”
“I heard you,” he interrupts, frowning, confused and wild. “I don’t…I don’t want you to kiss me just to stop me acting grumpy.”
Her expression flickers, something sharper beneath her humour. “I was going to kiss you because I’ve fancied you for ages and decided to finally act like a Gryffindor about it, but if you’re so against—”
He doesn’t think, not really—he just moves, hands sliding under her thighs, lifting her from the bench with a strength born of instinct, not planning, setting her on his lap in one motion, and then he’s kissing her.
He’s kissing her.
And—
Augustine Goodman is a fucking idiot to have fumbled this.
But James doesn’t spare him another thought, because every second of the last several years is rushing to this point: her mouth warm against his, her hands in his hair, tugging, making the most delicious sounds he’s ever heard, and then she’s sliding off his lap, pulling him down, down, down on top of her across the bench until his body is braced above hers and the world has narrowed to nothing but the heat of her.
She starts giggling suddenly, so much so that he has to break away, grinning down at her, breathless.
“What is it?” he asks, lips brushing hers.
“You punched him?” she asks, laughter bubbling over again.
He rolls his eyes, then kisses her once more, softer this time, playful. “You’ve fancied me for ages?” he teases against her mouth.
She shoves at his shoulder, not nearly hard enough to move him, and he only pulls her back until they’re sitting upright again, still face to face, close enough that he can see the light in her eyes.
Merlin, she’s beautiful.
Her grin breaks wide, beaming, dazzling, and she says, “Not grumpy anymore, I see.”