Chapter 1: Secret Keeper
She isn’t ready for it—but then again, when would she ever be.
“Nice ferula charm, Evans.”
Lily doesn’t need to look to know whose smug grin stares down at her. She waits a beat, hoping in vain that silence will deter him and he’ll go off to follow the sea of students pouring out of the classroom. It’s wishful thinking of course–when has he ever done what she wanted?
“Look Potter, I’m not interested in sarcasm this morning.” She keeps her gaze down, busying herself with lining up the corners of her books flush against each other. She’d hoped that after five years of suffering under his confident and calculated gaze it would become less intimidating, but like muscle memory a deep wash of heat enters her stomach, making all her vitals stir.
“I’m not being sarcastic,” James says, “If you hadn’t second guessed your wand movements and just kept a steady elbow at twenty degrees it would have been perfect.”
An infuriating twist of her gut. He’s right and she hates it—but she hates even more that he was watching her closely enough to notice.
“Yeah well, if you just kept your arrogant arse steady at—” She turns, ready to finish her admittedly childish jibe when the words cut in her throat. He’s closer than she thought, leaning with one hand against the desk. His eyebrows arch in anticipation for the rest of her sentence but his mouth remains in a flat line.
“Uhm—”
It comes on slow. A deep, warming feeling that she hasn’t felt before–not from him at least. It pours right down her veins and pools into the pit of her stomach, hot and syrupy and drowning all her insides until she swears the air has gotten thinner.
It’s unsettling how much she likes it.
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