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In honour of Henrik’s part in Julestorm - here’s my snowed-in xmas fic from 2021 ❄️😉
(so go ahead and drive me insane, baby run your mouth, I still wouldn’t change being) stuck with you
The departure hall is crammed; lines of travelers snaking all through the large building, and a speaker announcement seemingly on an endless loop:
“Due to weather conditions, all flights are currently suspended. Please wait for more information.”
A couple of hours later, it’s clear that he’s not flying anywhere today. Nobody is, seeing as all planes remain grounded, and from what he can read scrolling around on various news sites, it looks like he might not even be flying out tomorrow. Snowed-in Christmas in New York, then.
Written as part of a Terrible Tropes drunk drabble with @grangerdangerfics @provocative-envy and @pacific-rimbaud
Pairing: Lavender Brown x Charlie Weasley
Rated: G
571 words, countless emojis
Terrible Trope: Long Distance Relationship!
Tags/Summary: Told entirely in texts. Lav is bored. Charlie is a Lepidopterist.
August 3rd
9:41 am LavenderRose79: Babe
9:42 am LavenderRose79: Babe?
9:43am LavenderRose79: Babe...
9:44am LavenderRose79: Okayyyyy. u must be busy with the 🦋🦋
10:01am LavenderRose79: My boss is such a dick. He fucking 🚩🚩 YELLED 🚩🚩 at me for being a little bit late. Like whatever, no one’s coming in to a funeral parlor at 9 in the morning or even 9:30. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
10:05am LavenderRose79: Im bored.
10:06 LavenderRose79: What are u doing?
10:07am LavenderRose79: OMG I can’t wait to come visit you!!! 48 days, 10 hours some minutes! I am so excited for Palawaaaannnnn baby! Can we get a glass floor hotel room?
12:01pm LavenderRose79: Lunch yay! 🥪 I’m getting my acrylic touched up 💅🏿 so if I don’t respond for a few minutes that’s why! LOVE U 💖💖 KISSESSS. 💋 MiSS U!
1:01pm LavenderRose79: I’m like so bored. 🥱🥱 Working sux. 😤 🤮
1:03pm LavenderRose79: So if u had to rank all the colors in the 🌈 what would u put? Mine would be purple blue yellow red orange and (ew) gr...
1:07pm LavenderRose79: Omfg this guy just fucking got in my face. It’s not disrespectful to want to finish ur text, god. Wish u were here to kick his azz for me.
1:08pm LavenderRose79: People are supposed to be sad at funeral parlors, not dicks!!
2:10pm LavenderRose79: I hate working here. Dead people yuck! 👻🧟♀️ I’m gonna apply at Applebees I think. Parvati told me the tips are so good. Would be so much moar fun 2 study butterflys like uuuuu.
2:55pm LavenderRose79: Whats ur fave 🦋? I know u told me but i forgot.
3:07pm LavenderRose79: I love how strong u are.💪💪💪 When i see u will u bench press me again?
3:42pm LavenderRose79: Ugh i think i just snagged another nail. Fuck.
4:16pm LavenderRose79: Bored bored bored bored. 😾😾 Filing sux. What do u do with the Mc’s? That’s not even in the alphabet.
4:18pm LavenderRose79: The girl who works here. The daughter of the owner. is. so. weird. 👽 Someone needs to inform her about tanning beds.
4:47pm LavenderRose79: Would u ever go on a hot air balloon? I wouldn’t too scarrryyyyy
4:55pm LavenderRose79: Yessss time to go home. Meeting Parvati at the bee for an appletini. 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸She gets the emp discount and it’s 2-4-1 ladies night! 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸So if i’m slow to respond thats whyyyyyyyy. Don’t worry I will never look at another guy but U evn if he’s hot. 🤭
5:01pm LavenderRose79: Omg i feel bad for even writing that last text. Forget u saw it. I love u and I would never disrespect u!!! 😭😭😭🤟🤟🤟
7:09pm LavenderRose79: Babe
8:15pm LavenderRose79: Babe ihave to tell u this joke parvati said. Omg im dying.
9:03pm LavenderRose79: Babe i lovu
10:01pm LavenderRose79: Oof probably should not have had 5. Fell over. That’s gonna bruise. Gnight! Liv u. 💜💙💛❤️🧡💚 grn still fug ew!
August 4th
11:00pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Hey babe!
11:01pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Remember what I told u about the timezone! 15 hours ahead! U gotta text later at night!
11:03pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Green blue orange yellow red purple
11:04pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Blue Morpho cuz it reminds me of ur eyes
11:05pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Fuck no. Air balloons. Fuck. SMDH.
11:06pm ChaztheButterflyGuy72: Can’t wait 2 see u 2
the good girl’s guide (to getting dick from your roommate) chapter 1
“Fine, whatever,” Betty says, rolling her shoulders and slipping on her punching mitts, getting her feet in the correct position to help him practice his jabs. “Come at me, bro.”
Archie cringes. “I wish you wouldn’t say that, it makes you sound like Reggie-”
“I know.”
“-and I’m sorry I ever set the two of you up-”
“Sure you are,” Betty cuts in, holding her hands up for him to start. “Especially since Josie dumped you both anyway.”
“Am I ever going to live that down?”
“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “Not ever. Now come on, let’s get this done so we can go get burgers-”
“Burgers?” she hears from the outside of the ring and she looks down, startled.
She holds back a sigh.
How does someone with such a stupid name wear it so well?
“Hey, Jug!” Archie calls, waving with a smile. “You wanna come?”
I wanna come, Betty thinks wistfully, chewing on her lip and trying not to be obvious as she stares at him. All over your face.
Big thanks to @lovedinapastlife for looking this over for me.
Last year (2019), I launched fully into the Damione ship and embarked on a personal 10-fest challenge. I scraped by at exactly 10 fests and 2 drabbles. Yesss. And now for a year of no fests. (Does it count if I committed to one due in 2020 before the year ended?)
10. KyoDreams In Another Life Fest: The Making of Draco Malfoy
Meet the Honourable Mr. Draco Malfoy, rich, entitled, and bored, and the adventures that just might turn him into a reluctant hero. Regency England AU featuring the Napoleonic Wars.
*Runner-Up for Best Fluff in Granger Enchanted Awards*
9. Salt and Pepper Fest 2019: Hot in the Himalayas
Revenge is a dish best served cold. In the icy reaches of the Himalayas, years after their ill-conceived affair, Hermione plots out the steps to her revenge with a few old friends. It just so happens that things don’t turn out exactly the way she plans, not when tempers are running so hot.
She's locked in a tower when he finds her, bewitched and imprisoned. Dark Rapunzel retelling.
7. Riddikulus Fest: Boys Over Magic, or Hermione and the S4
The War's over, but not at Hogwarts. Meet the S4, and the Muggleborn witch who's determined to go up against their leader. Dramione inspired by Boys Over Flowers.
6. DFW’s First GOGO Fest: Tempo
Draco's good deed is punished. How bloody typical.
On the verge of a suitable marriage, a chance meeting with a mysterious time witch gives Draco a chance to review his options.
5. TheMourningMadam’s Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale Fest: How to Date an Idiotic Pureblood Wizard
Hermione just knows Draco's up to something in the Ministry-mandated Muggle Awareness Class. She's not going to let him, not if it's going to interfere with her plans to take over the world, starting with one Pureblood at a time. Crackfic tribute to My Immortal.
4. HP Drizzle Fest: Where the Light Breaks
The War was over, and things should have been better—but they weren't. Or maybe they could be. Repeated encounters with an old classmate puts old wounds into perspective.
3. Dramione Remix Round 10: Spinning the Stars
Because of course Hermione Granger would find a way to stopper time if she set her mind to it.
What happens if you manage to solve the mystery of immortality? It's not as wonderful as it sounds when you return to find that the world has continued spinning without you in it, and that everything is changed forever...
*Winner of Reader’s Choice Award*
2. DFW Trope Fest: Pinned
Draco doesn't know what he's expecting when he follows Blaise down a dark alley, but it certainly isn't this. For a man with an addictive personality, this isn't going to turn out well. Assigned trope: Voyeurism. Heed the trigger warnings. WIP.
1. Twistmas - A Dark Xmas Fest: Mirror, Mirror
1999. Eighth year. Something's different about Draco Malfoy. He's kind and courteous, and he even smiles. Ginny is convinced something's wrong with him, but Hermione would rather believe the best of him. He's changed for the better, right? Or perhaps it's something a bit more sinister…
AND two Fairest of the Rare RarePair Drabbles:
Urban Legend
It's just an urban legend about Muggleborn witches, isn't it? Cormac really, really wants to know. Cormac x Hermione. Word count: 500.
Girl of Sun and Summer
There's tragedy at the Dragon Reserve this winter, and Charlie would prefer not to have any visitors, especially not his beloved, meddling younger sister and her tendency to set him up with her friends. Charlie Weasley x Luna Lovegood. Word count: 800.
Now for an entire month of sleeping and slacking off...
A/N: Yes, yes, I know. I suck. This is nothing new. But if this is a hot mess, please let me know, because I’m very paranoid about this chapter. I’ve edited it way too much.
Also, please indulge me in the way I've just entirely made up the details of how professional Quidditch works, and doubled-down on how Quidditch press works, too. ("But Bee, why does your sports press line seem more like a red carpet--" "SHUT UP I DON'T KNOW I ONLY WATCH GYMNASTICS CAN WE JUST GO WITH IT.")
Link to: PART 1 + PART 2 + PART 3 + PART 4 + PART 5
__________________________________
+ + +
DAY SIX (Middle)
Day Six requires a reset, James is quick to decide. A reset, a revival, a resurrection.
Goodbye, rubbish. Hullo, deliverance.
He will salvage this wreck. Salvage his sanity. He’s determined. Resolved.
Though, admittedly…his timing could be better.
The team has the first match of morning—a fact James truly wishes he’d thought to recall approximately eight hours, two rows, and (undetermined) bottles of scotch ago. Foresight has clearly never been his forte. Neither, apparently, is self-control. He feels raw, positively splinched at the edges. Hoff’s call has unnerved him. His visitors have undone him. As he rushes around the now-crowded hotel room, gathering the remnants of dignity equipment he’d haphazardly discarded the evening before, that point becomes increasingly obvious.
But his mates are here, the lovely, useless bastards. His people. His family. James is heartened and resigned and exasperated and happy to be properly reunited with them…while simultaneously noting that he may have appreciated it more without feeling like someone’s taken a Beater’s bat to his head.
(He’d meant to plan this properly. He’s certain he had done.)
(Ow, ow, ow.)
No family is without its dysfunction, of course. Sirius is cocooned in blankets and drama, refusing to leave the bed. Remus and Peter are jovial, but clearly feel as if they’ve missed something (have done). Peter combats this by chattering incessantly. Remus cocks a questioning eyebrow at the whole tableau—prima donna in bed, empty whiskey bottles strewn about, vague sense of panic in the air—to which James can only sigh back an unspoken, Later.
He is tired, tired, tired, and late, late, late.
Bugger, bugger, bugger.
“We’ll see you after?” Remus asks as James eyes his wrinkled practice robes huddled at the base of the bed with muted distaste. They reek like a distillery. The whole bloody room does. He reaches for them anyway, glad to find he can reach—his shoulder is still a bit sore, but the stiffness seems to have gone. He can lift and rotate it readily (praise Merlin!). He performs a quick cleaning spell, dons the soiled robes, and nods at Remus before summoning his missing arm pad, which zooms out from beneath an armchair, bent and dusty.
Lovely.
“I’ll find you,” James answers hurriedly, unbending, undusting. “Don’t know how long I’ll be. Have to duck out of the press line—”
Peter clears his throat. “Speaking of press—”
“No!” Sirius snaps.
They all turn.
“No?” asks Peter.
“Bloody arse is seeing nargles,” Sirius mutters, glaring at James. “Don’t listen t’him. Can’t be trusted.”
“Leave off my nargles,” James returns, scowling.
Peter snorts. Remus sends James another pointed look (Silly ponce, it clearly chastises. You expected a reaction other than this?), and James shrugs (can shrug!) a noncommittal, Eh.
“Well, I want to hear more about your lady,” Peter says, grinning happily again. “We’ve bought her a present, after all.”
He gives the Hot for Pot banner another jolly wave, and James watches his photoself—very clearly nude, very clearly delighted about it—wink and pose from banner-land.
(He’d insist it’s a doctored photo, but honestly, he can’t be certain.)
(He dives for it, but dodgy Peter can be a fast little bugger when humiliation is on the line.)
(Humbling, that.)
Three minutes later, James is out the door: defeated, irritated, banner-less.
This is not improved once he’s besieged.
He ought’ve expected it. Day Six means the exhibition is now officially open to the public, and Quidditch fans have poured into the area like a veritable tidal wave of shouts, colors, and unhinged enthusiasm. James is stopped at least a half-dozen times before he can even clear the hotel. One bloke asks for an autograph, then subjects James to a six-minute diatribe on the state of Fitchburg’s defense. A middle-aged mum with two kids in tow propositions James so outrageously as she’s snapping a photo that he wants to slap his hands over the innocent children’s ears, spare them the indignity. A positively ancient wizard dressed head-to-toe in Appleby pale blue mistakes James for Rodger Jostins and is so joyously thrilled by the prospect that James doesn’t have the heart to correct him.
(He’d wanted a reset, not a reincarnation. But at least someone’s pleased with him.)
He is the last to arrive in the locker room. Lorri is still stretching in the corner. Jools calls, “Good morning, good morning!” as James shuffles in. Lufty already has the Ogden’s out and is preparing his shot. James quells an immediate gag reflex at the smell.
No one mentions his leaving training early the day before. No one mentions his tardiness now, either. The room is busy and chipper and apparently disinterested in the dramas and schedules of their youngest Chaser. It’s a wild relief. James snaps on his wireless (returned from the vents?) and after a Broomstyx hit and a Ruff Ratherford power ballad, Sleekeazy is the second advert to play.
“Sllllleeeeeeeekeazy!…two drops for hair to pleasy! Dare to care—”
“No-oo!” Marcie groans as the locker room laughs. “Why won’t it leave us alone?”
James doesn’t turn off the wireless, but there is a smattering of cheers and applause when the next advert to play is indeed something new. But in spite of the jingle, James still feels off. Like he’s chipped and nicked in all the wrong places. Like he’s got a balloon slowly inflating inside his chest. A quick Hangover Charm is slow to take effect. He can’t kick a general sense of bewilderedness. His shoulder has retained its ugly shade of splotched purple, and since he’d rather avoid questions, questions, questions, he pops open the miracle tin from Lily’s mate and applies the salve with his shirt still on. It’s clumsy work.
He thinks of Lily as he salves. (Don’t think of Lily.) Thinks of his mates. (Don’t think of your mates.) Thinks of an island he might escape to where he can be alone with only fruity drinks and the crashing waves to keep him company.
(Yes, all right.)
(Oops, no—there’s Lily again, wearing a grassed hula skirt and not much else, bless her.)
“Is that lemons?” asks Jools suddenly, startling James out of his perverted fantasies. He jumps, but Betts already has her nose pressed to his robes, sniffing enthusiastically. She pulls back grinning. “Well. Don’t you smell pretty, Potter?”
James goes scarlet. “Prettier than you,” he mutters.
She smirks, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes, see, but some of us actually play hard enough to sweat, eh?”
He chokes out a laugh, popping the salve top back on. “Touché.”
At his easy concession, she gives him a curious look. “All right?”
James shrugs, wishes he knew.
There is not much opportunity for further banter or contemplation. The alarm is sounded—time to depart for the pitch. Before they leave, Klinderson gathers the team for a pre-match pep talk.
“Penultimate match, comrades,” he says, slapping Dooster on the back with one meaty hand. (Doos, impressively, only winces slightly.) “Let’s give the rabid masses something to cheer for!”
They all whoop and clap their agreement. James does his best to contribute. Then it’s out the door, onward.
(Onward.)
The stadium is a madhouse, each section of stands filled to the brim. James blinks at the sudden sunlight, but the Hangover Charm seems to finally be doing its job—a vague twinge is the only reminder of this morning’s foibles. He tries not to examine the surroundings too much. Tries not to contemplate just who is in those stands today, how each of them matters. He can’t. Not now. Not three minutes before play. The warning whistle blows.
He kicks off and lets the wind take him.
He expects to be distracted on the pitch. How could he not? But it is—surprisingly, fortunately—just the opposite. They’re up against a formidable lot, including James’s presumed double, Rodger Jostins, and Alla Abdel, a prodigy seeker fresh out of school who’s rumoured to be one of the fastest flyers the game has seen in ages. Lorri is good—very good—but James knows they can’t depend on her points this match. He, Dooster, and Marcie will need to pad the score as much as possible to manage a victory.
The crowd is roaring from the very start. They lose the Quaffle on the release, but gain it back with a well-timed Bludger from Klinderson. Marcie grabs it in the freefall, and despite the sparse drills run yesterday, James moves easily into formation. When the Quaffle comes to him, he’s able to whip it over to Dooster without the same tormenting rigidity that had made the exact maneuver near impossible the day before. Dooster is a bit clumsy with the catch, but makes up for it with a key feint and a zapping shot. It sails through the left hoop, just as the keeper dives.
Ten points.
More cheering.
James lets out a long breath.
He knows this. He loves this. The last few months have been…Merlin, he doesn’t know. A million things. A million, sometimes not-so-great things. Sirius was right about that. And this past week…James feels like he’s lost his damned mind a hundred times over. Coming back to England. Puddlemere. His mates. His parents. Hoff. Lily (most certainly Lily). He knows he hasn’t handled it all as he might have done once: casual and cavalier, resolved and resilient.
He’s been knocked down a few pegs, taught to worry. And while it’s not necessarily a bad thing to learn some consideration, some humility, in the flux he seems to have lost touch with the taste for this: a love for this game. For what he’s done. Accomplished. For what he can do, and can’t do, and will fight like hell for anyway.
It feels good, coming back to that now. It’s a reminder he needs, today more than most.
When the hell had he lost it?
Reset.
As he pulls off a textbook Backhand Bernham with Dooster, flying past the goal posts as his shot sails through the center hoop, James finds the person he most wants to discuss this all with is Lily. She’d get it, he reckons. She’d know what to do, what to say. And rather than worrying him, that makes him feel better.
(So much better, he scores three more goals in the next fifteen minutes. But who’s counting?)
(Well, he is, obviously. And the scoreboard. And likely Lily, too. And his mates. And Hoff. And Tufton—fucking hell, Tufton. Is he watching? Of course he’s watching. But—shutupshutupshutupPLAY.)
James plays.
He plays his bloody heart out.
+ + +
They lose the match, 270-350.
His very first exhibition loss.
James is…conflicted.
Well, perhaps not so much conflicted as content, which in itself seems like it ought to be a conflict. It was a brilliant battle, though, well-played on nearly every front. Relatively green as he still may be, James knows the rarity of that sort of outcome. Victory has transcended the numbers displayed on the pitch, and everyone—from the (overly competitive) players in the sky, to the (forever finicky) fans in the stands—seems to agree. It’s a loss in scoreboard only.
Which is not to say that James isn’t disappointed. Only human, isn’t he? He’s had a revelation, a rekindling, and what better way to pay that proper homage than with points? A scoreboard win would have been preferable in most ways, all things considered.
But despite the end result, he feels…good.
Good?
Yes. That’s it. Good. Validated. Satisfied.
Fancy that.
Better yet, these seem to be shared sentiments. The post-match locker room is filled with good-natured sighs, heady recaps, and teasing ribs. Marcie is laughing loudly with Lufty. Klinderson’s bulky chest puffs as he accepts praise for his prime batwork from Betts. Even Lorri, ultimately felled by Abdel on the chase, has her chin up, her back straight, occasionally smiling. They’ve all been through this before, will go through it again. It’s the job.
Play worthy, James thinks, that old Puddlemere adage. But there’s valiancy in defeat, too.
Interesting, that.
…though perhaps not nearly as interesting as what he somehow finds himself doing next.
In retrospect, he’ll never be able to account for the logic of it. He watches it all happen as if outside of himself, floating there above the madness. There’s a recognizable dance to the post-match process. Victory or loss, content or conflicted, it’s all the same: cool down, change gear, gird your loins accordingly. Eventually, the team will file out of the locker room. Outside, one of the exhibition wranglers will be waiting to herd the lot of them up to the press line. James is a near expert at this bit by now: wait for movement, give the (heavily bribed) wrangler a wink, and then it’s off through the roughshod door to the left that leads down to the equipment room and out the back exit of the stadium. No mess. No press. Freedom.
The team gathers. The movement starts. The roughshod door is there.
James sees it. Stares at it. His feet are moving. He stares harder.
Passes it.
(What?)
Passes the next potential escape, too.
(What is he doing?)
And the last.
(What is he doing?)
Oh, bloody hell, he thinks, at nearly the same moment his feet seem to be chanting, march, march, march! He’s marching? He’s marching. Why is he marching? He doesn’t understand. He’s certain his brain did not make this choice. His feet have gone rogue. The order’s gone out from up top—stop—and filtered down, getting corrupted somewhere in the vicinity of his chest, so all his feet are hearing is stomp. Not the same thing at all, stop and stomp. Very important letter, that m. Cannot be spoken more disparagingly of, that m. Please, Merlin help him, someone explain to his feet about the m. Why won’t they listen? It makes not the slightest bit of sense.
And yet on they go, the damned recalcitrant limbs.
He’s not the only one grappling in confusion. Standing outside the press room (what what what) as the other team finishes up their round, Betts is eyeing him in sharp question. Dooster, likewise, gives a double-take when he spots James still with them at the threshold.
“What’s this?” Doos asks.
James jerks a shoulder. It’s a truly compelling question.
“Stick close, yeah?” he tells Doos instead, feeling a bit bleary-eyed. “Dunno what the fuck I’m doing.”
Dooster is still laughing as the wrangler gives the signal and they all walk inside.
They’ve noticed him, of course. Two dozen people begin whispering—then yelling—his name.
Is there always this much yelling?
He ignores them. Sticks to Dooster’s back like a toddler clinging to mum. Looks up, searching.
No, no, no—he’s press?—no, no—
Yes.
She’s toward the back of the pack. Hair up, black dress, trusty credentials hanging around her neck. There is a pad of paper in her hands, but that’s all he can really see from this vantage point. Their eyes meet. He can see the green even from here. Bright. Surprised. Her brows shoot up to her hairline.
What’s this? they ask.
He grins bravely. Unpredictable, aren’t I?
Her lips purse. Something like that.
She begins to push toward the front, and James stifles a giddy laugh.
The team fans out. This isn’t a formal press conference. They saddle up to whoever in the line catches their attention. Or perhaps it’s more strategic than that. James truly wouldn’t know. He’s the proverbial hippogriff foal on shaky legs, stumbling about blindly. Sam Lockley from Quidditch Weekly gives him a welcoming smile from behind the barricade, and James reckons he’s as good a place to start as any. Dooster seems to agree, and they amble over together.
“Truly excellent match, lads!” Lockley says in greeting, beaming victoriously. “Full of surprises. Eh, Potter?”
Potter. That’s him.
“Er…yes. That’s…well. Yes. The surprises.” Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Hate for things to be dull for you, Sam.”
James hopes his overly-bright smile compensates for the fumbling.
Sam—bless him—doesn’t seem deterred by the slips.
“First time you’re playing on the same side, isn’t it?” he asks them both, apparently understanding the comfort in numbers plot and kind enough to lob them a few easy tosses. “Seems to be working up there. What’s that been like?”
“Trying to keep the Quaffle away from this hog? Near impossible,” Dooster jokes, elbowing James in the chest. Cameras flash. “Give a bloke a few scoring records and goes straight to his head, it does.”
“Oh, were you meant to be playing, as well?” James asks, finding stride. “Explains why you kept getting in the way of my shots.”
Doos laughs and throws an arm around James’s shoulders. “When can I ship this tosser back to America?”
Lockley grins. “No time soon, from what I hear.”
There’s a pointed, expected pause. The reporter is waiting for James to respond. Of course he is. For the first time, James realises the press might interpret his appearance here as some kind of signal. It’s long been understood that if James was signed to Puddlemere—to anywhere, really—these kinds of appearances would be expected. He can’t play his same avoidance game back on British soil, with the kind of hefty contract he’s demanding brewing beneath the cauldron.
But that’s hardly a done deal at this point, and James is not sure he should—could—explain that the real reason he’s here has less to do with career, and more to do with some kind of mental break and a pair of knowing green eyes.
Speaking of…
Dooster has filled the lull of James’s non-confirmation with some clever spiels about the ease of play between the three Chasers on their side—professionals, competitors, etcetera…James makes humming noises of agreement, but his eyes focus just beyond Sam Lockley’s shoulder as Lily stealthily slides in behind the other reporter. James tries not to be terribly obvious, but is likely not overly successful. His heart patters in his chest. He feels like he’s gulped a lungful of fresh air. Lily—of course—ignores his keen attention and instead keys into the interview dynamic. She is very clearly unimpressed with his efforts. With a pointed look and a prodding twirl of her finger, she urges James back into the conversation, all go-on-hop-to-get-in-there.
(The things he does to please this witch, really.)
He tries his best. He jumps in, talking about training, about the match, about Marcie and her smart communication, Dooster and his focused assists. When he starts to babble, Lily’s twirling finger morphs into a slowly lowering flat of fingers (cool-it-slow-down-that’s-enough!). He complies readily.
She doesn’t ask questions—this isn’t her interview, and James knows there’s internal press politics to that sort of thing—but she jots down notes from time to time. James wonders if any of this will make it into the furloughed article. He also knows he and Doos spend more time with Lockley than is usual. Most of his teammates have moved on to a second or third interview by now. That’s how these things work. James might be more embarrassed about the fact that they’re very clearly coddling him, but he’s too relieved at the indulgence.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so patient.
About five minutes into the babbling, a tall, dark-haired bloke in bright blue robes saddles up to the front of the barrier. James spots him only a few seconds before—without so much as a please-if-you-will—he roughly bumps Lily aside and leans in over Sam Lockley’s shoulder.
James blinks.
“Fucking hell, Dalton?” Lily snaps.
“Mr. Dooster, Mr. Potter,” the man says grandly. His grin is blinding. “Jack Dalton, Daily Prophet.”
Sam Lockley looks cross. Lily looks livid. But neither does anything more than snap or glare at the man, which tells James he’s likely somehow higher-up than them both.
“Dalton,” Lockley says tightly. “So glad you could join us. Mind if I finish up?”
Dalton ignores him. “Excellent match out there, gentlemen. You both played beautifully…can’t blame either of you for the loss.”
The words are too pointed and strangely delivered. Dooster’s eyes have narrowed. James is instantly on guard.
“Thank you?” Dooster offers.
The reporter’s smile turns sharp. “Twenty-seven goals on your side, but lost on the catch. Got to be frustrating.”
“It’s how the game is played,” James answers carefully. Where’s this going?
Dalton waves a hand. “Of course, of course. Still, enough to make a decent Chaser shout, and you’re both better than that, hm? I think it’s safe to say you’re questioning the choices of your Seeker.”
What?
“Choices,” James repeats flatly.
“Choice of?” Dalton corrects slyly.
Ah. James sees the target even before Lily’s eyes flash at him in warning.
The fucker was going after Lorri. Lorri.
It’s so preposterous, so outlandish, James is momentarily dumbfounded. Lorri?
Thankfully, Dooster is quick on the recovery. “Not certain what you mean, mate.” His hand immediately moves to James’s arm. James feels the nudge—let’s go let’s go let’s go.
Happy to oblige, James twists away accordingly.
But Dalton is relentless.
“Alla Abdel is barely out of the schoolroom,” he blurts loudly as they turn, “yet she outflew and outmatched Lorri Jackson today. Youth has its favors, and in this sport…well, hard to argue Appleby might be reconsidering Jackson’s contract come renewal time. Next year, isn’t it? Tough for female players at the end of their careers. Always cling harder than they ought, eh? I’m sure you gentlemen were equally impressed by Abdel’s performance this morning?”
It’s a clever tactic, worded just so. The options are clear: disparage Abdel, or defend Lorri, with a happy dose of misogyny thrown just there. Any response gives Dalton his quote. Dooster’s hand applies more pressure to James’s arm. Lily’s face has gone completely scarlet. The line is crowded—all the nearby reporters have their eyes and ears trained on this exchange now, just in case. James can see it all unfolding.
And while he knows—knows—the smartest thing to do is follow Dooster’s prompt, find another spot on the line, another legitimate question to answer…something inside James revolts.
Because, honestly? This bloke is scum. He’s beyond scum. He’s the dirt James scuffs off his trainers in the morning, the sludge at the bottom of his tea cup. He’s looking for a juicy morsel of gossip—Young Stars Lament Teammate Jackson, or something equally as rubbish—and James is aghast at the audacity. In a match as well-played as this one had been, the tact is so obvious, so heavy-handed, so unnecessary, James can almost laugh. He should not reward even the attempt with a response.
He shouldn’t…but then he thinks of Lorri.
Stable, steadfast, resilient Lorri, with her calming air, her pregame stretches, her quick fingers, and her small smiles despite—yes, fine—ultimate defeat on the catch today. As if that’s not the game. As if it’s not utterly unavoidable for one Seeker to win and the other to lose. He thinks with fury, this is the reason I don’t do this, and understands the power and limits of no comment. He loves no comment. He and no comment are the very best of mates.
But now he’s here, and he can’t—can’t—leave it at that. It’s just not in him.
He turns back to Dalton, ignoring Dooster’s fingers clenching, Lily’s fast blink at his movement. James’s fists ball. His voice is low, rough.
“Are you new at this?” he asks Dalton.
The reporter stares. He’s giddy at successfully goading a reply, James knows that, but he’s confused by the one he got. Up for the challenge, he smiles. “New at this?”
“Yes. This. Quidditch.” James waves a hand, takes a step closer. “You must be. Because anyone with even the smallest hint of knowledge about the sport would have watched the match this morning and understood the Seekers at play. Abdel is fast—she’s so bloody fast, I’d hate to face her in a race, that’s for certain. I’m sure she’ll be zooming past us all for years to come. But equally as certain is that nearly every time she dove for the snitch this morning, she was following Lorri Jackson’s lead. Abdel is young. She can’t read a professional pitch yet. One day she will, but the idea that Lorri Jackson was somehow less-than…laughable. Completely laughable. She was seeking, while Abdel was chasing. Sometimes you win that way, but you can’t always, and everyone knows it—or, that is, everyone who knows even a whit about Quidditch.” James leaves that point posed for a moment, delighted by the staggered look on Dalton’s face. Delighted. “Which brings us back to the original question…Are you new at this? Because the way I see it, you’re either new, you’re inept, or you’re an unmitigated arsehole. So which is it?”
So which is it?
(Ha.)
The question hangs in the air. Dalton is silent. The whole bloody line is. No one speaks, no one moves, and with the blood still pumping furiously through his veins, James knows better than to wait around for any of them to regroup. Shooting a quick look at Lily—she is pressing her lips together so firmly, the edges of her mouth have gone white—James smiles pleasantly at Sam Lockley, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.
“Lovely speaking with you, Sam,” he says.
Someone breaks the stupor. James is blinded again by flashes—clickclickclickclick. He turns around, prodding a shell-shocked Dooster in the back. Move, move, move. March, march, march!
He’s not quick enough.
“I wonder if Greta Moors feels similarly?” Dalton snaps at James’s back, voice filled with taunting fury. “Or Fredrick Fords? I’ll just owl him for comment, shall I?”
Clickclickclickclick.
Curse fired, direct hit.
James keeps walking.
“Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter!—”
He is furious. Furious.
Fuck Dalton. Fuck. Him. Greta and Fredrick Fords be damned, too. James regrets none of this. His first real foray into press in ages, and he ends up telling off some pompous tosser in the line? What of it? Bloke is worthless, and James can antagonize any member of the press he’d like. Anyone at all he’d like. He doesn’t regret any of it. He doesn’t.
(It’s fine you’re fine don’t panic don’t panic.)
Dooster is at his elbow, walking quickly to keep up with James’s brisk strides. As the shouts continue around them, it’s Dooster’s voice that James concentrates on.
“What a cock,” his teammate says, and James can only grunt an agreement. Then Dooster snorts. “New, inept, or an arsehole. Bloody hell, Potter. Had that tucked away in your pocket, did you?”
“Years of pent-up aggression? Some,” James replies, and Dooster throws back his head and laughs. There’s more flashing and clicking.
Fine. They can have that.
He needs…hell.
James glances back over his shoulder.
She’s still standing beside Sam Lockley. Jack Dalton has gone—James doesn’t see where, but hopefully nowhere James will ever encounter him again, good bloody riddance—but Lily has lingered. Her lips aren’t pressed in contained mirth anymore, instead tweaked slightly upward as she watches him, too. The expression turns shrewder as the seconds pass. Her eyes are quite, quite bright. With a subtle jerk of his head toward the end of the press line, James hopes she understands the desperate attempt to ask, meet me please please please?
Lovely, clever witch. She nods immediately, then disappears into the crowd behind her.
All right.
All right.
It’s fine. He’s fine.
“You know, I think I’m quite done here,” James tells Dooster, hoping his voice only sounds that tight inside his head. They’re nearly at the end of the line anyway. James has sped through like his trousers are on fire. People have been shouting his name—they all seem to be shouting something—but James hears it like an echo through a tunnel, all hollow and vague. “You all right?”
Dooster nods. “Think I’m quite done, as well. Nothing going to top that, eh?”
Shit shit shit shit.
James smiles weakly. He’s walking too fast. He knows he is. It’s terribly, terribly obvious. He wants to get out of click-flash-shout range, though, and he’s barely managed to do so before a short obstacle stumbles into his exit path.
“Note for you!” the boy says, thrusting parchment at him.
James takes it numbly.
It’s very clearly ripped off a white pad of paper, which comforts James even before he opens it and sees the familiar handwriting.
Bvrg kiosk sect. 4 left pillar. xo
Beverage kiosk. Section Four. Left pillar.
James murmurs something to Dooster—sorry urgent note thank you thank you thank you—then takes off like a pack of dementors are floating at his heels. Section four is close. The beverage kiosk will be crowded with spectators milling about between matches, but maybe Lily’s counting on the busyness to maintain his anonymity. He keeps his head down nonetheless, casting a quick Concealment Charm in hopes that it will deter gazes from lingering his way. He’s never regretted the absence of his Invisibility Cloak so keenly. When he reaches Section Four, he lifts his eyes only high enough to scope out the terrain. The small alcove off the side of the beverage kiosk’s left pillar is surprisingly easy to spot. He weaves his way toward it.
He’s not quite running, but he’s not quite walking, either.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he’s saying even before he gets there and finds her, tucked away in the spot as promised, thank Merlin. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Shit,” she agrees, but she’s laughing. Lily. Hullo there. Laughing. “James. Fucking Christ.”
He’s a bloody mess. He fairly falls into her, arms curling around her waist, the momentum pushing her back against the alcove wall. His face drops into the cool, comforting crook of her neck, and he sucks in a ragged breath.
“That was stupid,” he mutters into her skin. “Stupid. I am furious. Fucking furious.”
“You are clearly not the silent and seething sort.”
“Can’t even believe—”
“Unmitigated. Five syllables!”
“Shit.”
“It was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Stupid.”
“Well.” Her fingers sink into his hair, soothing. “Only a bit.”
“A bit.” He chokes on it. Laughs. Is he laughing? “Oh, hell.”
He lifts his head only enough to cover her mouth with his.
She does not shove him off. He is not so awash in his own anguish that he can’t acknowledge she’d have every reason to do so. He’s a waste of a human nowabouts. Instead, her hands slip down, cupping his face, fingers skimming along his jaw. Her mouth matches his in fervor for a few thrilling moments, then pulls back carefully, slowing the onslaught. That’s all right. He doesn’t mind slow. His heart is beating so fast, slow is good. She tastes delicious. Like tea and mint. He’s never come at someone like such a lunatic, and wonders what sort of price he’ll have to pay in the afterlife for these kinds of earthly indulgences. Whatever the cost, fine. He’ll gladly give his bloody soul for a few minutes of this, of her (all right okay he’s bloody insane).
But she doesn’t seem to mind. That’s the maddest bit of all. She lets him kiss her, kisses him back, and doesn’t seem bothered in the least that she’s latched herself onto the loopiest bean in the Bertie Botts bag.
She’s still chuckling as she pulls away, albeit decidedly more breathlessly.
“All right?” she asks.
James drops his forehead against hers. He wheezes, “Yeah, sure.”
“Liar.”
He shouldn’t laugh. How can he laugh? But between lingering kisses, he does. “Can’t snog the seethe or stupid out, I reckon,” he sighs.
“Ah, well. At least we gave it our best attempt.” Her hands drift down, playing with the lapels of his robes. His heart is doing its best to thump its way out of his chest and he’s certain she must feel it. “This is not a disaster,” she says.
“The snogging?”
“Well, that. Good on us, eh? Meant the rest too, though. It’s not as bad as you think.”
James pulls back, incredulous. “Yes, it is.”
“That—”
“Don’t coddle me.”
“I only meant—”
“Who was the tosser?” James interrupts again. “Dalton.”
Lily’s lips dip grimly. “Arsehole of the highest order, you had the right of it there. Left Business & Broomsticks for the Prophet a few months ago. Haven’t the faintest how he survived there, except for favors. He’s connected, if little more than a gossip columnist. But he’s a lead reporter now and he brings in subscriptions with his rot, so we’re all left to suffer.”
“Connected.” James repeats the word dully. A headache is forming. “Which means he might actually be able to owl round Fredrick Fords?”
Lily opens her mouth. Closes it. “I don’t know.”
James sighs again. As if it matters. As if the Puddlemere owner wouldn’t hear of it in any case. “Lovely.”
“You were defending a teammate,” Lily argues loyally. “Against the rubbish innuendos of a sensationalist fuckwit.”
“Don’t reckon Puddlemere will see it that way, do you?”
“Then they’re fuckwits, too.”
“Lily.”
“What? It’s true. You shouldn’t even be—” She stops, shakes her head. Seems to swallow something else down, and doesn’t let it come back up. “It’s true,” she repeats instead, definitively.
Not that simple. It’s not even remotely that simple. James runs a tired hand down his face, striving not to dwell on all the ways he’s drowning in the complications. The expectations. All of it. “I should’ve walked away.”
She can’t much argue with that. “Maybe. Likely. But even if you had done, he still would’ve made it into something. It’s what he does.”
“How?”
She hesitates. Fidgets. “You know.” She waves a hand. “ ‘Potter Avoids Questions About Jackson’s Loss: Silence Speaks Volumes’; or ‘Potter Panders to Press in Attempt to Save Face”; or “Abdel Jealousy Leaves Potter Mutely Fuming”; or—”
“Or?” James chokes out. “Or? You’ve more?”
Lily shrugs uneasily. “There’s a lot of ways to warp ‘no comment.’”
Fucking hell, James marvels. It took her not even three seconds to come up with those.
His stomach dips sourly.
She notices, of course.
“Don’t.” Her voice is sharp. Her fingers clench. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
The scathing look she shoots him makes it clear she doesn’t appreciate the dissembling. “You know what I do. You’ve always known. I’d never write that sort of rubbish. I’ve more morals than that.”
“Right.” He speaks quickly. Maybe too quickly. “Yes. ’Course. I know.”
“Do you?” She asks it pointedly. Her hand curves around his jaw, tilting his gaze down to square with hers. Her eyes are narrowed, assessing. She doesn’t pull away, but…
But her touch grows lighter, warier. Tense apprehension seems to drip from her—apprehension she has every right to feel, because she’s correct: he’s at odds and ends and she’s somehow found herself at the wrong end of it all. It’s not worth it to prevaricate. She’s already proven more than once that she’s got his number there. He’s fooling no one. But his mind’s too a-jumble, his equilibrium too off-kilter from the morning—Sirius, and Hoss, and the match, and Dalton, and all the rest of it. He wants to tell about it all, but he’s nearly certain it’ll come out all wrong: “Yes, all right, I thought all those things for a second…but only because I was up half the night with my best mate talking about how you might be using me for a story! And I’m on the brink of fucking up my whole future! Again! And the Dalton thing! And you just then! But really, I think you’re brilliant—”
Merlin, he’d want to punch himself. Already does, rather.
He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Gapes some more.
Fuck, he’s got to say something.
“James.” Her hand drops. Her voice is tight. “Look. This…us…we don’t need to do this—”
“What? No. No.” He frantically grabs for her hands again. “That’s not—that’s not what I want. That’s not what this is at all. I’m sorry. I’m an arse. I…” He brings her hand back up to his cheek and fairly droops into her cupped palm. “I never meant…I know you wouldn’t. I shouldn’t have made you feel like I had done. I’m just…I’m cross and panicked, all right? I’m angry with myself for the Dalton shite, and stressed about Puddlemere, and my mates are here, and you…you panic me most of all.” She blinks at that, and he rushes to explain. “I’m hanging on by a thread, see? The saddest, rattiest, threadbare string. These past few months…completely barking. Such a sodding splinching disaster. And I just…I dunno why you’d even consider it. This. Me. I’ve been trying to suss it out, trying to understand why in the hell either of us hasn’t run away screaming yet, and I’m at a loss. I’m a terrible bet. A precarious plot twist for you, all around. You see that, don’t you?”
Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as he thought it might be. He sounds like a raving lunatic, but all the better to make his point, isn’t it? He closes his eyes, taking comfort in the fact that she hasn’t pulled away yet, hasn’t even dropped her hand back down to her side. In fact, she takes his fumbling, bumbling declarations with likely more grace than he deserves.
Eventually, she exhales loudly. “James—”
He opens his eyes. “It’s been six days. Little more than a hundred hours. That’s how long we’ve known each other.”
“You’ve counted?”
“Well. You know.”
She bites her lower lip. “Do you want to run away screaming?”
“Sometimes,” he confesses. “Or at least, I reckon I ought to. Don’t you?”
“Sometimes,” she concedes with a rueful little smile. Her shoulders slump for a second, her chin dropping to her chest. Then she looks back up at him. “No use pretending, is it? Neither of us is stupid enough to ignore the obvious. Yes, my life would be infinitely easier if you were some dully average, virtually unimportant, struggling barkeep from Nowhere-shire instead of essentially the biggest commodity the sport has on offer right now and the largest contribution to my career and livelihood at the moment. I’d wish you a little less talented, a little less relevant, a little less you, except then I’d likely find you considerably less appealing and the whole thing would be moot. So you’re right—we’re pretty terrible bets for one another. For all my scruples, I could lose any bit of journalistic integrity I’ve garnered, maybe even get sacked for this. I know that. That’s…bad. Really, really bad.”
“I don’t want you to get sacked,” James says. “You’re brilliant.”
“You know what people will say, don’t you?” She gives him a pointed look. “That I’m using you. That I’m bartering my favors for stories. That you’re a naïve nodcock for letting it happen. That I’m biding my time until I can con my way into begetting an ill-gained bastard child to set myself up for life. That—”
James chokes out a laugh. “An ill-gained what?”
She waves a hand. “You know what I mean.”
He did, but her examples were nearly as colorful as Sirius’s. “Lily. I know you’re not ‘begetting’ anything.”
“You assume I’m not begetting,” she corrects. “But either way, it doesn’t mean other people won’t say it. People who don’t matter. People who do.”
People who do matter already had done…and yet, James was still here. Insanity, suppositions, and all. She was the first one he’d wanted when everything tilted sideways. Was the first one he’d wanted when the sideways had seemed to level out a bit earlier during the match, too. That said something, didn’t it?
He turns his head, dropping a kiss into her cupped palm still resting against his skin. “I don’t care. Do you?”
She lets out an unsteady huff. Her fingers curl. “A little, truthfully. But…well, here we are.”
“Here we are,” James agrees. He even manages a smile. “So glad we’ve cleared that up.”
“That we’re both utterly thick, self-sabotaging hedonists?”
“Might’ve gone with ‘mutually enamoured’ myself, but all right. Yours works, too.”
“No, I like yours. Straightforward.” She rises back up on her toes and fits her mouth against his properly, a long, lingering kiss. It’s a rush, a comfort. Mutually enamouring.
Nothing about this seems to be straightforward, but James reckons snogging Lily is about as close to it as it gets.
Which makes it a rather large pity—on numerous levels—when she tears her lips away from his.
“Shit,” she says. “I forgot. We have to go.”
“Go where?” James asks. He has no interest in going anywhere.
She straightens his robes, then licks her thumb and smudges it across his lips. “You’ve got lipstick everywhere.” She winces guiltily.
“It’s a new look,” James offers, and attempts to angle for some more by catching her mouth again.
She barely lets him get in a few pecks before she’s squirming away. “Come on, come on. Save it for later.”
Later gives him hope. She gives his arm a yank, and James lets out a quick hiss.
“Ah—careful. Shoulder,” he reminds her.
She skitters to a halt. “Oh, hell. I’m sorry. Is it still…you played so flawlessly this morning, I assumed—”
“Flawlessly?” James rears back. He grins. “Flawlessly, was it?”
She rolls her eyes and tugs at his non-injured arm. “Relatively,” she adds. “You know, compared to when you were flinching every time you so much as breathed yesterday.”
“Flawlessly,” James crows, as if she hasn’t spoken. They leave the alcove together. “Now, that’s a word. Come a long way from ‘decent’ and ‘adequate’, eh?”
“Come a long way from a lot of things,” she mutters. “Humility, among them.”
“Flawlessly—”
“Oh, good God—”
James’s smug laughter abruptly dies as they swerve past a particularly large crowd of spectators and he spots a specifically smaller crowd of three ambling toward them.
He rounds on Lily, grabbing hold of her shoulders, stopping her mid-blasphemy.
“Er.” He blinks at her. “So, listen.”
Her eyebrows lift.
“I would like you to recall,” he says hastily, quietly, “a few moments ago, when we both decided that we are suitably enamoured of one another and I would like you to hold on to that feeling very tightly. Right now.”
Her head tilts in question
“They mean well,” he adds. Then amends, “Some of them mean well.”
Which is all he manages to get out before his mates descend.
“Congrats on the spectacular loss!” Sirius calls, ruffling James’s hair with one hand. The other precariously balances a tall cup. “Rest assured, we cheered very hard for the other team.”
“Cheered ourselves nearly hoarse,” Peter agrees. “‘Rah, rah, Rodger!’”
“You hate Appleby,” James accuses.
Remus grins. “‘Hate’ is relative.”
James rolls his eyes, but sees Remus’s gaze flicker beyond James’s shoulder to where Lily still stands. He swallows down the snitches zooming about in his stomach, the feeling that some might call delighted eagerness or uncontrollable hysteria depending on the day, and clears his throat. “Lads, I’d like—”
Sirius thrusts his cup over James’s shoulder.
“Here,” he grumbles. “Do you have any idea how long that queue was? And you’ve awful penmanship, by the by. Couldn’t tell if that was a four or some kind of ancient hieroglyphic.”
James watches Lily’s smug grin flash as she takes the cup. “Got here, didn’t you? My penmanship is exquisite.” She takes a sip of the drink, and nods in satisfaction. “Excellent. Only 4,999 to go.”
“Excuse me? I believe you mean 4,998.” Sirius crosses his arms. “I brought you that butterbeer during the match.”
“That was an apology butterbeer. And far before terms were settled. Doesn’t count.”
“Doesn’t count? Doesn’t count?” Sirius whirls on the other two. “Does it count?”
“Of course not,” Remus says.
“Definitely doesn’t count,” Peter agrees.
“What? That’s—collusion!” Sirius rails. “Where is your loyalty?”
James can only blink, utterly bewildered, as the four begin to argue semantics of drinks, of terms, of timing and apologies, and most certainly of collusion (emphasis required).
James watches it all for several long moments.
What. Is. Happening? (Emphasis. Required.)
“What is—” He has to raise his voice to be heard. “Oy! What—what is this?”
“Collusion,” Sirius insists again with a decidedly outraged look. “Haven’t you been listening?”
James turns on Lily, because she seems the likeliest to be depended upon for reason. “These are my mates,” he tells her.
“I know.” Her smile is secretive, self-satisfied. “We’ve met.”
“Yes, clearly,” James says. “More interested in the how and the when, thanks.”
“Utter coincidence,” Sirius declares, at nearly the same time Lily baldly states, “I was shanghaied.”
Shanghaied.
Shanghaied.
“What?” James is not quite shouting, but not quite not. “What?”
“It wasn’t as bad as that,” Peter is quick to insist.
“It was as bad as that,” Remus concedes guiltily.
“There was,” Lily says, “this dog.”
James shoots a look at Sirius, who is now studiously examining the ceiling. “A dog.”
“Yes, a dog. On the stadium grounds. Very strange.” Lily talks animatedly with her hands. “So he comes up to me, then dashes away, and I’m following this dog round this remote corner, see? Because, why? And then I lose him—hey, where’d the dog go anyway? Where does one even get a dog around here? Or through security? It’s all…well, never mind, anyway, then I am surrounded by these three, and I kicked poor Peter in the shin—”
“Quite all right!” Peter rushes out, hands held high. “We did sort of skulk up on you.”
“Right—”
“Skulk.” James can barely manage the word. The image of all this so clearly unfolds in his head—every disastrous second of it—it’s really quite a wonder he can even speak at all. ”You skulked up on her.”
“I actually recognised Remus quickly enough,” Lily jumps in. “We were in Defense Club together at Hogwarts.”
“Defense Club.”
“Yes. Before I left. He was very good with Shield Charms. But see, I didn’t catch sight of him before I’d already kicked Peter—”
“—no harm done!—”
“—and Fuck Off there was looming a bit murderously, so I cannot be blamed—”
“It wasn’t murderous,” Sirius says. “That’s just my face.”
“—but it was sorted pretty quickly, all in all,” Lily finishes. And grins.
They are all grinning, in fact. Looking at him all innocently, all very ha-ha-isn’t-this-humorous-so-many-chuckles-no-harm-no-foul-let’s-move-on-shall-we? Like they haven’t…like they haven’t…
James attempts to regulate his breathing—attempts to regulate his outrage, and the need to howl, and wail, and maybe send prayers up to the heavens—and struggles to reach the ha-ha place of let’s-move-on.
But he’ll have to be forgiven for not quite getting there just yet.
He turns slowly toward his mates.
“All I asked,” he manages shortly, his voice chillingly measured and low, “is for you lot not to scare her off. That’s it. Be decent. Normal. At the barest level, don’t give her more reason to ditch me arse-over-head on the side of the pitch than I already have done all on my own. And yet that somehow, in your feeble minds, leaves amble room for shanghaiing her, in a dark corner, looming murderously, with a dog, to—to—”
“It wasn’t a dark corner,” Peter mutters. “There was plenty of light.”
James cannot even muster a response for that. Instead, he whirls on Sirius. “You!” He jabs a furious finger. “This was you.” Now Remus: “And you let him!”
Remus shrugs helplessly as Sirius scoffs, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. You were clearly a biased party, and we just wanted to chat with her, Prongs.”
“Chat with her?” James shouts. “And you couldn’t chat with her later, at a perfectly normal location I’d already set up? Without the skulking and the bloody dog—”
“You are very hung up on this dog,” Lily says.
“I’m going to kill all of you,” James declares, glaring at the traitors he’d previously had the stupidity to consider family. “Kill you.”
“See? That’s murderous,” Sirius mutters to Lily.
James fairly lunges at him and Lily wraps an arm around his waist as Sirius dodges away with a cackle.
“James! Honestly.” Her arm squeezes him. “It’s fine. Fine.”
“It’s not fine!”
“It is,” she insists again, hand stroking and patting his side now. Like he’s a skittish lamb in need of coddling. “We had a good chat, that’s all.”
“About what?”
She presses her lips together, clearly still finding this humourous. “Intentions,” she says.
He shoots another deadly look at his mates.
“It’s all sorted now,” Lily continues. “After a bit of back and forth, we’ve all settled that I am in fact not after a promotion, or your fame, or your money, or—what was it, Sirius? The ‘begetting of an ill-gained bastard child to set myself up for life’?”
James’s eyes fly to Lily’s.
She winks.
Fucking hell. The colorful example wasn’t like Sirius’s. It was Sirius’s.
“Run screaming,” James advises her quietly. “Truly. Go on. Save yourself.”
“For the record,” the traitorous bastard James formerly called brother interjects, “I stated very clearly I’d still serve as godfather for any fruit of your loins, ill-gained or otherwise.”
“Bit difficult to do when you’ll be three leagues beneath the ground,” James retorts.
Sirius rolls his eyes. “Really, she took this all loads better than you’ve done.”
“To be fair,” Lily adds, “I was bribed.”
James eyes her cup. Now it’s all starting to click together. ”With 5,000 beverages? You settled too low.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, no. That was a bet. Much later.”
“What, then?”
She takes a long sip of her drink, then innocently offers, “Pornographic banners, actually.”
Pornographic banners.
James chokes. He sputters. His head whips around to glare accusingly at Peter, who only shrugs helplessly. “What? Apparently she’s hot for Pot. Who could’ve known?”
James considers homicide. He considers suicide. He considers several other -cides, or possibly something that includes time travel, or sudden short-term amnesia, or even hypnotism, but in the end he merely settles on not quite meeting her eyes. “Er.” He coughs. “Those are…erm, fake.”
Except it comes out as “…fake?” rather more than “fake.”
He really wishes he could recall if they were fake.
Lily smiles like the cat that’s got the cream, seemingly equally as unconvinced by this claim. “Mm-hm.”
“It was cold in the room,” is what Sirius offers.
“We were all young and impetuous once,” is Remus’s input.
“I’ve got at least a dozen more,” Peter confides, and he grins like he means it.
Shite, he probably does mean it.
And then they are all speaking at once, which is sort of a relief and sort of isn’t, because Lily is looking intrigued and Peter is looking smug and Sirius is having far too much fun for someone who James only minimally has determined he no longer has to throttle immediately, and Remus is cocking his brows at James in that way that very clearly states, Yes, well, sorry, but it’s all wrapped up quite nicely, hm?
If a witch can somehow overlook being shanghaied by one’s mates, and was still willing to stand here a few hours later, bartering for pornographic banners like a wily grandmum taking on the grocer for her weekly vittles…
Well, that’s something, isn’t it?
Very, very much something.
The snitches inside James’s stomach are dancing. They are dancing in giddy, frantic, uncontrollable delight and he wants to hug someone and hit someone and really, the fraying string can keep fraying so long as he can hold this moment just here, right now, for quite a long time.
Click. Flash. In his brain. The good kind of click flash.
He is not the one who interrupts it. He has in fact joined in, unable to keep quiet after hearing Peter’s absurd claim that there is in fact a banner featuring a naked James lounging beside a sleeping lynx at the London Magical Menagerie (which had to be impossible…right?), when one of the ever-present exhibition errand lads squirms between the lot of them, thrusts a folded note at Lily, and says, “Here!”
She takes it absently, flipping it open as she’s still arguing, “…I don’t care how much money you’ve donated. They don’t let naked wizards stroll into the lynx cages at the London Magical Menagerie for drunken photoshoots.”
“No one said we asked,” Sirius says.
“That is so—” Lily jerks. She’d already been half ready to toss her arms in outrage, but her body instead stiffens as her eyes fixate on the note. Her mouth closes. She looks…perturbed?
“What is it?” James asks.
Instead of answering, she whips around and raises two fingers to her mouth. She lets loose a shrill whistle, and shouts out a pointed, “Oy!” to the errand lad who was already starting to scurry away through the crowds.
The boy turns back to her, exasperated.
Lily lifts the note. “This came from Hopper?”
The boy nods impatiently.
Lily closes the note and turns back around, the boy running off again behind them. She’s frowning, staring off at some dead space to their right. She appears to be more confused than anything else, but it’s certainly a far cry from her laughing teasing of moments before. When he touches her arm, she jumps, her gaze jerking up.
“All right?” he asks again.
“It’s…yes. Yes, fine.” She shakes her head, seems to attempt to shake off the moment, then quirks her lips gamely. “Sorry. Work. You know.”
“You’re not…in trouble?” he asks it softly, pointedly. “Not…you know, all this…?”
“What?” She blinks. “Oh. You and…? No. No, it’s fine. We’re fine. I just…” Her lips press together. She is watching him rather stringently, but James can’t discern whether that’s because she’s contemplating him specifically, or he’s simply an obstacle in the way of her distracted stare. He can practically see her mind whirling at lightning speed.
She starts again, and lets off an unsteady laugh. “Sorry, sorry.” She waves her hand. The closed note flutters between her fingers. “Sorry,” she tells his mates, too. She lifts the note. “I’ve got to take care of this. Work.”
“Sure,” Remus says, but his brow is a bit furrowed now, too.
“If you’d like to begin an exposé on nude Quidditch banners,” Peter states, “I am a very reliable source.”
Lily smiles more easily. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She turns back to James. “I’ll…I have to…but I’ll see you…?”
“Later?” James fills in. She nods, but certainly she’s acting strangely, isn’t she? Could it be something about Dalton? Lily had been witness to the whole thing. Maybe someone at the Prophet had questions. Could she get in trouble for that, if not their relationship (if he could indeed call it a relationship)? But then James feels a bit conceited for thinking everything was somehow about him. Likely, it wasn’t. Likely everything was fine. The news never stopped, did it? And this was her job. “Still reckon we ought to tour The Cornish Pixie with the lads? And you’ve 4,999 free drinks still coming, yeah?”
She says her goodbyes quickly—still rather jittery, half-distracted, but genuine enough despite the speed of the whole process. Before she takes off, she grabs James’s hand and squeezes it. He wishes she’d told him what was in the note and why it had thrown her, what’s zooming through that clever head of hers, but it seems not entirely his place. Likely, if they actually make a go of this, there will be numerous notes and tips and meetings where she won’t be able to tell him a thing. It might take a bit getting used to, but that doesn’t mean James can’t handle it. All of this was still incredibly new. Allowances had to be made for both of them to match their strides.
As she disappears into the milling crowds, James reckons it’s enough for now.
Besides…he has plenty to focus his attention on at present.
“So.” He turns back to his mates, claps his hands together. “Do I murder you lot now, or do we tuck in to some lunch first?”
