A/N: My first Jilytober drabble! Based on the tumblr prompt: Fire

Lily Evans has fire in her veins and fire on her lips.

James has known this for a long time. Maybe since the day he met her, standing indignant in that train compartment and probably already seeing right through his bullshit. She is strong in her every conviction, and she will never, ever back down from an argument – he knows that all too well. Lily is spectacular in her fury, and James is glad he is scarcely on the receiving end of it anymore.

When they were fifteen, she had met him word for word, movement for movement, never let a thing he did slide. It had infuriated him, confused him, engrossed him, exhilarated him. When she walked into a room, getting a taste of her instantly became the most important thing in the world – a need that didn't always bode well for him, but that's all in the past now. Fire does that, it demands your attention like that.

She never stops matching his every move, never stops exhilarating him, never stops demanding his attention.

Not when they were sixteen and he was reeling from the loss of his father and she was staring him dead in the eyes, only a breath of space between them in that wide, empty classroom. Hers were bright and worried and determined, his were wet with the first tears he had ever cried in front of anyone, and she had said Listen. Listen to me. And he had, because when Lily Evans spoke, you listened, there was nothing else for it. You're going to get through this. You're going to be okay. And he had been, because when Lily Evans said something would be, then it was, there was nothing else for it. She had been unafraid to confront a version of him that no one else dared approach, unafraid like she always is. Unafraid like she acts like she is even when she isn't, and he will never stop being grateful for her.

Not in October, when he felt her presence on every inch of his skin from across every crowded room. Especially not when the common room fire had dwindled and the last of the late-night studiers had gone to bed and Lily had sat on the table in front of him, arms crossed defiantly across her chest and eyes blazing. Yeah, I fancy you, and what about it? And what about it? When Lily Evans fancied you, there was nothing else for it. Her kiss had been fire on his lips, and he will never stop needing her.

Not in April, when Mulciber and Avery had gone too far and they had felt her fury in all it's unforgiving glory. If he didn't breathe for her and he hadn't been there, she would have been fine still but they were so much better together. Mulciber and Avery had ended up in the hospital wing and he and Lily had ended up in Dumbledore's office with the most stunning of invitations – an invitation to fight, for real – and then later she had ended up wrapped up in him and he had marveled. Marveled at her, marveled in the fact that he could never earn her but she had chosen him on her own anyways. Marveled in the phenomenon of her touching him and his skin not bursting into flames, and he will never stop loving her.

That is the side of her everyone sees: strong, dead clever, definitely smarter than every other person in the room, takes no shit from anyone, fire in her veins and fire on her lips. He loves that side of her wholly and deeply, but –

Lily Evans has warmth in her heart and warmth in her eyes.

And here, right now, her head tucked under his chin and her arm slung around his waist, watching the country pass by through the train window, he loves this side the most. She is laughing loudly at a joke only she would ever find funny, and he wants to bottle up the sound and carry it with him forever. This is a side of her that is his, and he is exhilarated and he is grateful because she has chosen him to have it.

Lily Evans is kind and compassionate and so, so good, his chest aches with it. He saw it when she tutored first years even though she was all but bursting at the seams already. He saw it in her sympathy for a boy he could never learn to see the good in – Lily sees the good in everyone, and James loves her for it because she sees the best in him, too.

He sees it every day, in the way she loves him and the way she loves his friends for him. He hears it in her passionate promises to right all the wrongs in their ugly world, wrongs that hurt her more than most, wrongs she shouldn't have to fight, could very well choose not to, but she fights anyways. He sees it in her refusal to let even a drop of the ugliness seep into her, and God knows she has every right to, but she doesn't.

He sees it in her sleepy smiles and her hair strewn across his pillow, in the way she talks to his cat like he understands her, in the way she throws her arms around him like two hours apart had been a lifetime, and he doesn't know what he ever did to deserve her but he knows he might burn the world down for her if she asks.

This is the part of her that is his: worn out sweatshirts and late-night conversations and smuggled wine in bed and overly competitive games of Exploding Snaps with their mates and warmth in her heart and warmth in her eyes.

Now, drowning in her, consumed by her, the two of them and all their friends on a train to a reality they're not prepared for, he likes to remember this: Lily Evans has warmth in her heart and warmth in her eyes, but Lily Evans has fire in her veins and fire on her lips. If this ugly world burns down, she will never burn with it.

A/N: Leave me your thoughts in a review and come talk to be on tumblr! moonawrites dot tumblr dot com