lived, really lived
Her thighs ache and her hand has cramped twice but, the pile of rotas to go through is too intimidating and, also, now she’s started, she can’t really stop. She’s crouched on the floor next to her desk, slowly but surely scratching her initials into the wood just on the desk’s edge. She could have done it with her wand in two seconds. This feels more permanent. Proof she was really here, in Hogwarts as Head Girl.
“Didn’t know you were a vandal, Evans,” Potter says, his grinning face appearing next to her. Lily shrieks in surprise and the only thing that stops her from falling over is his invisible hand, suddenly, somehow, steadying her back. “Good thing we soundproofed this place, eh? Merlin knows what they’d think we get up to otherwise.”
His grin is blinding and she has to stop herself from smiling back. Her inevitable blush is already too much of a giveaway. Lily whacks his shoulder with the back of her hand and shoves him away, not disliking him being so close but also hating that she can’t get closer.
“You’ve got to stop sneaking around, Potter, else I’ll be forced to give you detention.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Do you feel threatened?”She asks, straightening up and brushing her robes down just so she doesn’t have to look at his stupid stupid smirk.
Looking considerate, he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his knuckle and then shrugs, lips still tugged up at the edges. “By you, Evans?” He pauses, letting the question hang, looking up at her with a glint in his eye. “Never.”
Lily tuts loudly and promptly turns round to clean the desk, desperate to give her hands something to do so she doesn’t grab his collar and demonstrate exactly how she’d like to take advantage of the soundproofing.
She hears him stand up, and some rustling and a drawer closing suggests he’s folding the cloak up and tucking it away. She’d found out about the cloak a week into seventh year and a week into them having the Heads’ office. Since then, he’d started coming into the office wearing it, seeing how much he can make her jump. If she’s being honest, half the reason she falls for it so easily is just because he puts her on edge. In a good way. In the best way. In a way that definitely does not go along with their agreement to be friends.
“You coming to dinner?” He asks as she shuffles papers into new piles.
“Fattening me up, Potter?”
“Making sure you eat, Evans,” he corrects.
“Lupin really was right about you being such a worrier.”
“Just a concerned... friend.”
She checks her watch instead of thinking about what that pause means, and decides that actually, she could do with eating a proper meal. “Fine, you can take me to dinner.” Turns out, checking her watch made her stop thinking altogether, because the second the sentence is out of her mouth, Lily realises what that sounds like. “I mean -” she turns around, subconsciously reaching up to tighten her bun around her wand. “Let’s go eat.”
He’s smiling far too casually. “Alright, Evans, if you insist.” He gestures towards the portrait hole, suggesting Lily should leave first and she grabs her bag before doing just that, finding the office a lot more cramped than usual.
“Aren’t you forgetting somet -” she starts when he steps through into the corridor, empty handed. “Actually, what did you come to the office for?” Usually he kept the cloak in his dorm, so it wasn’t like he’d come to put that away. And the office wasn’t even on the way to the Great Hall so he can’t have just been stopping by before dinner.
Potter blinks. Runs a hand through his hair. Then, with another smile, starts walking down the corridor. “C’mon Evans, haven’t you figured it out yet?”
Lily feels her cheeks heat up again, feels her whole body set alight. Words stumble around her mouth, and she weights up the pros and cons of just shoving him against the wall now and -
“Merlin’s beard Prongs, thought you’d died or something,” Black’s voice echoes around the corridor as he appears at the end of it. “You know they’re doing palak paneer tonight.”
“Just had to grab something Padfoot,” Potter looks over his shoulder at Lily and jerks his head gently. “You coming?”
* * *
After a reminder from McGonagall at breakfast the next day, Lily scuttles back to the head’s office to finish the rotas. She sees it as soon as she crosses the threshold. There, on her desk’s edge:
LE + JP 1977
