Written for @efkgirldetective's Summer of Jily Prompt #7 (Ice cream + "I don't want anybody else touching you like I do).
Tumblr exclusive at the moment because I don't have a title and the 'happy ending' part of the 'angst with a happy ending' was lost somewhere.
Rated M.
I will love to hear your thoughts about this!
_______________
I.
She is at the end of her round, going towards his cabin—her friends’ cabin, though Lily knows exactly who she is hoping to meet there—when she hears it.
‘—and Potter, what a waste. He won’t ever join him.’
‘We should just wipe him away. Blood traitor, muggle lover—’
‘You mean mudblood lover, Severus?’ Avery’s voice is tinted with malice and there are snickers around. ‘Potter and Evans seem pretty close nowadays. Do you think she gives him everything she denied you?’
‘I would never filth myself,’ comes Snape’s cold reply. ‘If he is tainting his blood, all the worse for him.’
Taint his blood. Is this what Lily’s presence does to James? Is she putting him in a danger he didn’t need to be just by being closer to him?
It’s Snape’s words and she shouldn’t listen to him—the days where she would hear him, would admire him, are long gone—but when she finally reaches the cabin (when James grins at the sight of her, bright and warm, and her heart skips a beat and Lily has to smile back), she sits away from James.
‘Anything wrong?’ he asks, familiar enough to read the tension on her face.
‘No, all normal,’ Lily says, and it’s the first lie.
______
II.
It’s summer and everyone is out of age now and apparating makes things so easy that Lily finds herself less and less at home during that break.
She tells herself it’s because she is avoiding the presence of her sister’s annoying fiance; she blames the fact that Dorcas has a beach house and it’s so much better spending days swimming and tanning; she even goes introspective to blame the pressure of the war looming over them in a way that means she needs to enjoy the last summer break before real life gets them.
But she knows the reason is James.
She finds herself gravitating towards him, unable to resist that attraction even as she knows how dangerous it is for him. Once or twice Lily thinks of telling him about it, of warning how he is stupidly raising his stakes by being near her, but she gives up only for the fact that this (might drive him away and she doesn't want it, not really) would probably just make him want to be even closer to her.
And they are already alarmingly close.
Once Lily would have been repulsed by that idea, but one year later everything has changed—James has changed—and everything about him appeals to her. The way he cares for everyone around him. The way he smiles patiently whenever he is explaining something. The way he grins as if to invite the world to share a great funny joke with him. How he runs his hand through his hair when he’s nervous. How he is so expansive that he seems to occupy any room he is in. How he loves flying, even more than Quidditch, and how relaxed he seems when he is on a broom. How he talks to her, taking it seriously when she needs to and making a joke when things get too serious. How he opens up about his own life and doubts and listens to her.
That would make them friends, really good friends, but then Lily’s heart would not stop racing when he’d touched her hand, or when their knees would bump while sitting closely in the library and then she was forced to note all the physical aspects—the muscles of his arms, the shape of full lips, the line of his jaw, the hazel kaleidoscope of his eyes and how fit he was—and give up any belief her feelings were limited to a friendship.
She fancies him, okay.
Except it’s not okay, because it’s dangerous and by now Lily is positive that James knows it too. Everyone knows it.
They end up together, just the two of them, a lot during that summer. It takes Lily a few days to realize it’s not a coincidence that her interests never align with those of her friends—if she wants to swim, somehow it’s only her and James in the sea; at night, even though it’s still so warm, they are the only ones who venture into the pool for a midnight swim, while the others stay stubbornly indoors.
When Lily suggests going to town to grab an ice cream, somehow James is the only one who is in the mood for it, despite the heat.
It’s not on purpose from his part—at least that’s how Lily sees it—but he isn’t refusing her company either and neither is she refusing his, so James’ boldness flourishes that summer. It’s not cocky as it once would be, it’s just a quiet acceptance that something is finally happening between them as if he never stopped believing it would be possible. Lily feels it when he throws his arm around her shoulders when they are sitting close, almost absently, almost not noticing when Lily lays her head over his shoulder; it’s there when he openly gawks the first time he sees her in a swimming suit, only to be nudged in the ribs by Sirius and then complimenting her ('good thing you wear robes at school, Evans, or there wouldn’t be much schoolwork done'). It’s definitely there when he intertwines their hands, pulling her to the sea with him.
And it’s there when they are sitting closer than they would need for a bench so wide, watching seagulls flying over the sea, each one holding an ice cream.
‘Chocolate chips with chocolate cover and chocolate sprinkles,’ James teases. ‘I think you have an addiction, Lily.’
‘Guilty,’ she replies, not ashamed at all, proving her ice cream and very aware of how James is staring at her. ‘It’s better than asking for vanilla ice cream.’
‘Hey!’ He would look deeply offended if not for the grin on his lips. ‘I’ll let you know vanilla is the best flavour.’
‘Never took you for a vanilla guy, James.’
‘What would take me for? The adventurous gorgeous type?’
Lily laughs, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want to lie to him and deny it.
‘Attractive mysterious type, then?’ he insists. ‘Handsome scoundrel?’
‘I notice your beauty is enhanced a lot.’
‘My beauty? So you admit that I’m beautiful, Evans?’
‘Do I need to? You seem to already know it.’
‘I enjoy hearing you saying all the same,’ he says, and though James shrugs easily she can sense the shift in his eyes, the nervous glint there. ‘That means we would make a beautiful couple.’
‘We would,’ she whispers, still not wanting to lie.
She turns back her attention to the ice cream, already melting under the scorching sun. It makes a mess, and James laughs as she tries to lick the ice cream out of her hands, but then his laugh dies and she watches him swallow slowly, reacting. He always reacts to her.
She licks her lips now, and he also watches this movement, the grin on his face replaced by concentration—no, determination, a fierce look and Lily knows what James will do even before he raises his hand to slide his thumb at the corner of her mouth.
‘You missed here,’ he says, and though he must have wiped off the ice cream already, his caress remains.
His eyes are dark now, even under the sunlight, and he registers how Lily hasn’t stepped back, how she raises her head just the slightest to get closer to him. His gaze strays to her lips, Lily blinks, and then James looks back at her.
‘Lily,’ he says, and it’s a question.
‘James,’ she says, and it’s the only answer she can give him.
His lips find hers and in the bright darkness that surrounds Lily when she closes her eyes, she can see everything in colour. The white of his taste of vanilla. The green of his perfume that reminds her of early mourning in the woods. The brown of his skin as he pulls her closer, one hand holding the back of her neck and the other hand finding hers, locking their fingers together. The red of her blood pumping furiously through her veins, so loud and unstoppable.
And she sees him, messy dark hair, hazel bright eyes, her own sun.
But when they break apart, when she watches him keeping his eyes closed a second longer—savouring it, remembering it—, all that comes to her mind it’s the warning.
Taint his blood.
Her smile falters.
‘James,’ she whispers, all warmth of the day gone, hating everything but herself so much more when he opens his eyes and they are filled with hope. ‘This doesn’t mean anything.’
And this is the second lie she tells him.
___________
III.
Summer is over as far as Lily is concerned, but they still have two weeks in which she forces a smile up to her lips that doesn’t fool anyone.
Everyone knows something happened, though no one knows exactly what, and Lily feels too tired to pretend everything is normal. James barely acknowledges her when they are in the same room, and in the few occasions their eyes meet, there is nothing of that familiarity that he once thrived to share with her. He looks confused and hurt.
Lily could deal with the confusion but she is powerless against the hurt. She is the one who damaged him after all.
Their friends are mostly adamant in letting them deal with the situation, one notable exception being Sirius Black, but Lily didn’t expect anything less from him. He watches her rather resentfully in the first days, and Lily starts looking for excuses to avoid attending the events she had carefully arranged with them (with James, sitting by the edge of the lake, holding a scroll against his back as they wrote everything they would do, laughing and planning and hoping).
The summer days are hot, unbearably hot, and the breeze that comes through the window of her room isn’t enough. She could cast a Cooling Charm, but her wand is far away and the fact that she can cast spells outside school has lost its appeal now. She doesn't even celebrate when her school letter comes with a badge attached to it.
Most of the time Lily just stares at the ceiling of her room, finding patterns in the painting that aren’t really there, too strained and too tired to avoid being even more strained—her mind keeps replaying the moment James leaned closer, the brief moment his breath tingled her skin and the softness of his lips over hers, and Lily has no strength to avoid it. She is addicted to it, to the one thing she had a taste of and cannot have again.
Five days into hiding (she is hiding, Lily won’t deny it), her sister knocks on her door to tell her unceremoniously that one of her freak friends has come to visit her.
‘Hurry, I don’t want Vernon finding him when he arrives,’ Petunia tells her, and Lily ignores her completely.
Him, she said. Him, Lily thinks, and her mind conjures James sitting on the couch of her parents’ living room, a grin on his lips as he charms his way with her parents (he charmed her, Lily doesn’t see what challenge her parents would present), accepting a cup of tea and looking around trying to understand all the muggle contraptions in that muggle house—
Muggle lover. All the worse for him.
She rushes downstairs, her heart pounding on her head, her mouth dry with the excuses she will have to present (go away, just go away) but it’s not James after all.
Sirius looks even more out of place than the James she imagined inside her head, standing with his arms crossed in that pastel living room, and with an unhappy grimace on his lips. He turns at the sound of her, his grey eyes burning disapprovingly—and then, as he stares at her, his expression shifts.
‘You are a mess, Evans.’
Self-consciousness washes over her, and Lily runs her hand through her hair—or tries to, because it gets stuck in the knots of her messy braid. She knows she hasn’t changed clothes ever since she woke up, though it’s nearly midday, so she does the only thing she can: she presses her lips, crosses her arms and tries to look unfazed.
‘I wasn’t expecting a visit,’ she says. It’s summer break, she can do nothing all day.
‘I didn’t even mean your appearance. It was more your… aura.’
‘Aura,’ she repeats, a tiny part of her finding this amusing, but Lily can’t muster strength enough to break a smile. ‘Very mystical, Sirius.’
‘That’s me, master of occult arts. But in this case, I just needed to look at you. You—you look miserable.’
‘Thanks. If that’s all you wanted to say—’
‘Oh, no, I came here to give you a piece of my mind about how you broke my best friend’s heart, but you look somehow worse than him. What’s going on?’
Lily shrugs. ‘Nothing.’
‘So you just decided to play with his feelings and ditch him the moment he corresponded?’
His words are a poison that crawls through her skin, entering it slowly but certain; Lily feels it reaching her bloodstream, spreading through every part of her body, until the poison finds her heart. She thought she was oblivious to pain after the last days, but she was wrong.
‘I wasn’t playing with his feelings,’ she whispers, her voice hoarse, so close to breaking.
‘Then what? I thought—everyone thought—you fancied him too. Merlin, Evans, that boy was in love with you.’
The worst part is that Lily knows it. It was not a play to James, it never was. She saw it in the way his face lighted up at the sight of her, how eager he was to become friends once Lily first extended her peace flag. She saw how his eyes always looked first for her in any room he entered, how he’d find any reason to stay closer.
And she saw everything because she was paying attention.
Of course she was. One does not fall in love also if not paying attention.
‘I don’t know what to say, Sirius,’ Lily says truthfully. ‘I am sorry for all the confusion I’ve caused.’
‘Sorry is not enough.’
‘I know.’
Sirius watches her with something that borders on disappointment now. ‘You better find a way of fixing this, Evans.’
‘I—I don’t know how. I’m trying to keep my distance—’
‘And how is that helping you two?’
It’s not, Lily knows, and that’s the point. She can’t explain to James what is the problem and she is afraid that if she sees him again, if her determination falters her for one second—
‘We are going to have a party tomorrow night,’ Sirius says, his voice leaving no room for argument. ‘Dorcas’ house. It’s a goodbye party, we even invited the muggle neighbours. You’ll come, you’ll find James and you’ll talk. Fix this.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You better find a way, Evans, because that thing of keeping your distance? Well, Hogwarts letter came yesterday. Let me guess, you are Head Girl.’
Lily nods, not understanding where Sirius is heading with this.
‘Guess who’s Head Boy this year?’
____________
Lily hears the music as soon as she disapparates near Dorcas’ house. People, young people around her age, are walking towards the house and she joins the flow letting herself get lost in that stream of people, hoping it’s enough to not draw attention to her presence.
It’s useless. As soon as she crosses the doorway, Dorcas cries for her, her voice louder than the music, and then people look at her curiously.
‘Merlin, Lily!’ Dorcas cries, ignoring everyone in the room to whom that sentence makes no sense. ‘I thought I would need to invade the Prefect’s Cabin to see you again.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Lily says, accepting Dorcas’ hug, and using it as an excuse to avoid looking around. ‘I had stuff to do.’
It’s vague, it’s almost a lie, and Dorcas is on the edge of discussing it when Lily says she is going to get a drink, leaving the room.
When she reaches the kitchen, Lily considers that having herself questioned by Dorcas was preferable, because of course she runs into James at the first opportunity.
And of course he already has a company.
He is with his back to her, holding a bottle of beer in his hand while he talks with a pretty dark-haired girl. In another time Lily would find amusing how James obviously has no idea what he’s talking about—muggle rock bands, a subject that Sirius would fare better—, but she can’t break a smile right now, because she sees that James is trying.
That’s what he is doing with that unknown girl. He is making a real effort to keep a conversation, trying to understand what she is saying; he is trying to look interesting, to gather her attention.
Ten days, she thinks selfishly. We kissed ten days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it and you are flirting with another girl.
He must sense her staring; he turns around, and his eyes find her for a brief second before Lily bolts through the door (she is running, and she won’t deny it), grabbing the first bottle she sees on her way out.
Sirius must have lied to her (you broke my best friend’s heart), because James looks normal. Not hurt anymore, just… normal. Not like he used to like her in those first glorious days of the summer—bright and hopeful and awaiting—but as if she is just anyone else. Ordinary.
It’s fair, all things considered. She couldn’t expect him to remain in love with the girl who kissed him then rejected him. But she sees it, clearly as day, what the future holds: James will move on whatever he feels for her (that boy was in love with you) and then he will do with someone else everything he used to do with her—that inviting grins, the glint in his eyes, throwing his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer, so… intimate. Familiar. Hers.
He will share with others what used to be hers.
She leaves the house, in search of a quiet place at the beach to sit on, and looks at the bottle in her hands. Wine. Not good. She will take forever to get drunk on wine and afterwards the headache won’t even be worth it.
But it’s all she has and James is somewhere in that house flirting with a girl (that’s not her) that didn’t reject him and he has every right to do it. Even if it’s a muggle girl. Even if the reason Lily is not with him is that she is muggleborn.
It’s ironic and it’s sad, but it’s not the same. This is a one-night thing. It’s the end of the summer, he’s probably just looking for the last bit of carefree summer adventure as the single guy he is. They will just dance with each other, close together, enjoying their freedom, finding a secluded room, and he will touch the corner of her lips, asking, and she will say yes because that’s the only answer she can give him.
It won’t mean anything, but this time it will be true and this time James won’t get hurt by it.
Maybe Lily should do the same. Not to get even, but to start her own way forward. She can’t be harbouring her feelings for him—wasn’t that the point of not advancing things? Wasn’t that why she lied to him? (That kiss had meant everything)
She takes a sip of the wine, then another and one more for good measure, and she rises, almost colliding with him. Of course.
‘Hey,’ he says awkwardly, arms extended to steady her. It lasts less than a second, but his hands over her arms burn all the same, stronger than the heat any day of that summer.
‘Hi.’
He is looking at a point over her head, unable to meet her eyes, his hand lifting the hair at the back of his head and Lily remembers running her fingers through the strands of his hair while they were kissing, enjoying the fact that for once she was the one messing it.
‘Look, I’m just gonna say it, okay?’ James says in a rush, not as when he is excitedly talking about something he finds interesting. ‘I’m sorry for—for everything.’
Everything. What does it mean?
‘I am too,’ she answers carefully. He takes a deep breath.
‘I heard we are going to be Heads this year—I don’t know what Dumbledore was thinking, really—and I don’t want things to be weird between us.’
Weird. Things were never weird between them before. They weren’t friends, then Lily barely stood him, then they were acquaintances, then they were friends, then they were flirting with each other and then they were so close to something.
But never weird.
Somehow this notion helps to clear the fog in her head.
‘I don’t want it either,’ Lily says, and there is no doubt in her voice. James seems to breathe again with her words.
‘Good.’ There is a moment of silence. ‘Can we forget everything and go back to being just friends?’
Lily steels herself. She takes a look at James’ face—his eyes are on her forehead now, almost meeting her eyes but not yet ready—, one last look to admire him in the darkness of the beach and she is not lying when she says: ‘We can.’
By the end of the night it will be a lie, though, and that’s number three.
___________
They are trying and because no one tries better than James Potter, they are almost achieving it.
They go back to the house, keeping a safe distance between them so no one could misinterpret it, but whatever their friends see in their faces seems to relax everyone. Lily and James are fine, they believe, they are over that weird thing between them, and Lily starts believing it too.
She can do it.
A bottle of gin finds its way towards her group and the music is exciting. It’s a party, she is on a party, and it’s easy to join Dorcas in the middle of a dance, and it’s even easier when Dorcas is replaced by a cute muggle boy who doesn’t look anything like James (that’s why it’s easier—it takes only one second for her to look for any similarity and find none and it’s so easy).
She wonders if that’s why James was talking to that dark-haired girl. If he was avoiding finding Lily in someone else too.
But that’s a bad thought, it’s not a thought of someone who’s trying (and Lily is, she swears), so she accepts his arms, let who-knows-his-name twirl her around the room, but when he leans in to kiss her, she laughs and diverts—she is trying, but it takes small steps, so she says something about getting another drink and goes to the next room.
That’s a mistake.
A big, big mistake.
She finds them sitting close together on a couch that should only fit one, joining some silly drinking game. His arm is around her shoulders, holding a glass that’s nearly finished; they are laughing and as Lily watches it, the girl leans closer to speak something in his ear, her hand playing with the curls of his hair as she speaks. It takes a full second, but he grins, turning to her and winking.
It could be nothing, it could be just some joke, but it’s not harmless, Lily knows it. It’s a flirt, and James has every right to do it; he is free and Lily has just told him they can be friends. Friends don’t get jealous. Friends don’t get their hearts ripped out with the sight of the other smiling happily at someone else.
Lily can’t do it at all.
So she turns away and runs once more (she’s getting quite good at it by now), sprinting upstairs in search of an empty room, somewhere where she can rest until she can breathe again, until she can rearrange her expression into something normal enough for her to come back to the party, find that blond guy who is not James and enjoy her summer break as he is doing right now.
Until she can pretend everything is normal.
‘Lily?’
His voice breaks the silence of that room—though Lily knows she would have heard it anyway—and it sends a wave of panic through her body. She is not ready. She can’t look at him and still keep her promise.
James doesn’t know about her troubles—he is trying after all, and he is so much better at this than Lily will ever be—so he walks towards her, takes a look at her face and kneels in front of her.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ she says, unable to lie. He would see through her anyway.
‘I saw you leaving—what happened?’
‘I need more time. I can’t...’
‘Can’t what?’ She doesn’t answer. James sighs. ‘Are you drunk? Come on, rest a little, I will bring you some water—’
‘I’m not drunk,’ Lily says. Another truth. ‘I just need—I want—’
‘What?’
In answer, she raises her hand and lets her fingers comb his hair. He shivers, his breath catching, his eyes widening and he holds her arm to stop the movement. Nervous. Insecure. She can’t fault him. They’ve been there before, at the edge of something, and she accepted only to turn him away a second later.
‘What are you doing?’
It’s a demand more than a question, and Lily attends it. ‘I don’t want anybody else touching you like I do. It’s mine.’
Her voice is ferocious and unfair and Lily waits for his cold reply, the one she deserves—she has no right to claim any part of him—, but it never comes. Instead, James blinks.
‘Then take it,’ he challenges. Lily does.
Her lips crash over his, and this time is not soft or patient. It’s desperate and when she tastes the whiskey in his mouth, she understands the difference and gladly accepts it. His hands are everywhere—holding her waist, climbing under her skirt, running through her hair to pull her closer—but what somehow stays with her it’s the moment he closes the door and then they are alone and the darkness is their friend.
The darkness makes it easy, embarrassingly easy, for her to break the kiss enough to lift his shirt and for him to slide her dress down and for them to find their way to the bed. He holds her, his lips incessantly, and a part of Lily wonders if he doesn’t want to break apart for fear of what happened the last time he did it.
But the majority of her is too wrapped in the feelings he is bringing to worry about anything. She accepts him, accepts every caress he distributes openly, and returns it eagerly. She tastes the saltiness of his skin, feels every muscle of his chest—the ones she has memorized after so many days at the beach though she had only imagined how they would feel under her fingers—, presses herself closer to him. His hands are exploring her—he saw her at the beach too—and then his mouth replaces his hands and the moan that escapes her lips is true.
She pulls him up, tasting her own sweat on his lips—it was a warm day and it’s a warmer night—and her hands work on the button of his jeans. There is a moment of hesitation—he breaks away, his eyes boring into hers even as the darkness barely allows them to see each other—and then it’s gone. He pulls her last piece of cloth then stands up long enough to take out his last one and then there is only them.
Only Lily and James, except they don’t feel like two anymore. They are one and in the darkness, Lily sees those colours that are so James once more, fireworks whose sounds are moans and short breaths and names whispered so low that the other could pretend they didn’t hear.
But Lily hears it and it’s hers. He is hers for that moment and she is his.
She lied before (and now she knows it). She can’t forget him. She can’t be just friends. James is bright sunny days, cosy cold nights and she longs to share it all with him (she couldn’t, but her mind can’t recall why right now). She locks her hand with his, her nails burying into his skin, and Lily doesn’t want to let go.
He holds her hand, pressing it so hard that she can’t feel circulation there anymore, and then he cries her name, this time impossible to deny it. He called her.
It’s not the last time he will do it tonight. He presses another kiss to her lips—it’s feverish and urgent and somehow even more desperate than the first one—, rests his forehead against her catching his breath and Lily enjoys the moment, enjoys that pleasure and soreness that runs through her body, enjoys how her chest brushes against his as she breathes, slower each time, recovering.
Recover. As if she could.
James breaks apart, rolling to the side and for a moment there is silence, the music distant, the world distant until it’s not anymore, until the world seems too close and the air too heavy, not one breeze to refresh it. Lily thinks of opening the window—it’s already opened, the wind bringing the smell of the sea to the room—when she realizes it’s not the air that feels wrong.
It’s them. No, it’s him.
‘James,’ she calls, panic and fear trembling her voice, coldness spreading through her skin in a way that it should not be possible, not on this summer day.
She can hear him rising from the bed, grabbing his clothes.
‘Lily,’ he answers shortly, opening briefly the door and she can’t see his face. ‘I know, it doesn’t mean anything.’
And that’s James Potter's first lie.
