DISCLAIMER: I don't claim to be J.K. Rowling, but I do worship her. So yes, everything is hers. Explanations at the bottom for the long wait. Thanks for reading...

ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter 20: A Bolt From The Blue

It was as a four-legged snake, a fish in the sky, or a cat in a pond. The sight of James Potter, ready and waiting for her in the Commons, was a sight that she could never have anticipated or even hoped for.

Needless to say, Lily was shocked. Shocked, flabbergasted, thrown for a loop, and utterly confused. Now, she had noticed the major changes James Potter had undergone in the past few months, yet she never suspected that they had been so complete as to create the change she now saw before her. Not only was James Potter awake, alert, and ready to revise--he had brought a peace offering of her favourite breakfast sweets as well. This was something wholly unprecedented and unheard of. Any other hapless soul she had brought with her to revise for exams had arrived at least fifteen minutes later than she had required, and would finally emerge from their dorm with sleep still covering their eyes as a warm blanket, and their clothes illy buttoned and mostly comprised of pajamas with unmistakably bed-headed hair.

Walking resolutely towards her, James pulled his free arm around her rigid frame, and directed her through the portrait hole, all the while guiding her shoulders with his firm grip. In this manner--him, with a grin wider than ever before stretched across his face, and her, eyes still opened wide in bewilderment and easily following his direction--James Potter and Lily Evans headed towards the Great Library, ready to meet their day, and whatever might come to pass.

--

As James sat himself next to Lily at her favourite secluded mahogany desk in the depths of the Library, he laughingly remembered the great effort he had put in to create the rude awakening that Lily had been met with only moments before. He had awoken at just past six that morning, an hour previously unknown to him, and forced himself into a freezing cold shower that pulsed all of his nerves and cells into animated life. Pulling on a set of clothes, James had then ran out of his dorm, still filled with his sleeping mates, with his pack falling off his back. Bribing the house elves in the Kitchens, James had then procured all of Lily's favourite treats, including, of course, tomato juice. And though he may have looked calm, cool, and collected when Lily finally emerged at half-past-seven; in all truth, James had just artfully composed himself by the fireplace seconds before her descent of the Girls' stairs. The cocky grin that had graced his features was there only in the afterglow of his plan coming to fruition--He had successfully surprised his girl.

--

"There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential."
-Rusty Berkus

--

They sat for hours, quizzing each other, and reading aloud old facts from older tomes, searching for answers to questions they would never understand. The plate of treats dwindled over the hours and minutes and seconds, as they picked and nibbled and finally noshed on their favourite things. Lily laughed as she noticed the tomato juice, knowing that she had never told James about her partiality towards it, knowing that he must have found out on his own. James laughed as well, knowing that he had truly done right.

Once, during a break in her studies, Lily turned her eyes toward James, watching him scribble notes on his slightly crumpled parchment. His concentration was wondrous... He did not break his line of scrawled words, and only stopped to turn the pages of the text in front of him. She had never seen someone, besides herself, sit and read with such application, and certainly not the James Potter she had known in previous years. He had been more likely to be scrawling notes to his fellow Marauders or sending troublesome spells at unsuspecting Slytherinn, than actually applying himself to the task at hand. What has gotten into him? She wondered to herself as she turned back to her work.

Nearly half and hour later, James set his quill to rest, and put his head on his right hand, using the other to gently poke Lily's arm as she wrote. She looked up and smiled at him, welcoming the distraction from a terribly boring passage in her book on Wizard-Muggle Relations in 15th century Spain.

"So Lily, d'you reckon Raina'll ever accept Sirius?" He pondered aloud with a questioning brow, lazily drawing small figures and doodles on the corner of his page.

Lily started, dropping the ink-covered quill she had been holding. She had known, of course, that Sirius fancied Raina, from her conversation all those nights ago with Remus, but she had never given it a second thought. It had seemed preposterous to her that Sirius Black, the aristocratic icon that he was, would be interested in her friend. Pushing more attention to the subject now forced her to realize that it did not seem so ridiculous, as Raina had always been the most popular of the four friends with the attentions of their male classmates. And she was, of course, a fantastic person, and one of Lily's best friends. Still, she couldn't really see them together.

Not wanting to hurt James' feelings, she answered in a noncommittal tone, "It's possible, I suppose." Turning her green eyes back to her work, she shrugged.

James gently pulled her face back up to him, "Tell me the truth, Lily. I know you think that Sirius is a bit of a wolf... but trust me, he really seems to like your friend. You'd be surprised; Remus is more of a wolf than ol' Sirius these days." He said with a wry smile. "It seems that you being around has changed more than one of us Marauders..."

Lily sighed, knowing that she had passed the point where she could actually keep things, even little things, from James. He just knew her too well. Fixing her eyes back on his, she was surprised by the intensity that quickly replaced the gaiety in his eyes. The weight of his last words finally hit her. It had been her, not anything else--not school, or the growing war around them, nor his imminent coming of age--that had inspired this change in him. It was this enormous, yet truly simple, last revelation that broke the dam and made up her mind in its entirety. And without another thought, Lily's lips crushed against James' and all was illuminated.

--

"Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are."
-Houssaye

--

It was that day in the Library that changed it all: changed it for the future, changed it for the past, changed it for the present; changed the wizarding world and their own personal worlds. As they sat together in that sunlit Room, their thoughts commingled and became one. They had talked and laughed, sat in silence and read, smiled knowingly and smiled without guile, and had finally, looked into each others eyes. And just as the night in the Owlery had connected their gaze and transformed them into friends--it was this locking of sight that turned them into lovers.

There are few moments in one's life that truly define you. Whether it is a great success, an achievement, a marriage, or a graduation--none can surmount the finding of one's love. It is a moment that is felt throughout one's entirety; through one's blood, veins, head, arms, and... heart. Pulse quickens, blush forms, eyes sparkle, and heart meets heart; lips meet lips. But despite its great importance, it is rare for one to ever have the capacity of pinpointing the exact moment of the fall. It is as a shooting star, a diving girl, a nuclear explosion, a car crash, a flash of lightning, or an opening flower. One may never know the moment of creation, nor the point of beginning. One may only know the feeling that comes after--washing over bodies and minds and consciousness, enveloping all that was and is and will ever be.

So, days, months, years, and even seconds after their momentous fall, neither Lily Evans nor James Potter would ever be able to say or know the moment they became one. But they had, and they felt it, and it was something that no one, and no thing, not even death, could take away.

Fin

--A/N: Hello everyone, if there is even anyone reading this two years after the fact. Its been a very long while and I know this. Nearly two years since I last penned this story. I'm not sure if this is the end, or the beginning of my little story, but it is something, and something after two years of nothing, really is something to talk about. I was just thinking about fanfiction the other day, and I remembered this story I had left alone so long ago. And I went back and read some of my reviews, and then I read my story. The reviews were so encouraging--and I felt a little guilty. Not because anyone in particular would be too upset if I never finished The Subject of Inkbottles, but because I, myself, had promised that it would never be discontinued and that I would finish what I had started. So here you go, whoever may read this, here's my second try...

Love,

Maia