Disclaimer: Not mine.

What Happens In Corridors

Lily Evans woke up in the seventh year girls' dormitory with one single, definitive thought: Today was the day she was going to kiss Benjy Fenwick.

She'd been admiring the six year Gryffindor from afar for a while now, and after a few weeks of between-class flirting, she was fairly certain that he fancied her back. Therefore, the time was ripe for her to take action.

She had decided up front that the only way she was going to go through with it was if it was somewhere private and darkly lit so that Benjy wouldn't see the inevitable flush on her cheeks and nobody would be around in the case that things went badly. This required a certain amount of planning, and was the reason why Lily had been sure to get to the Great Hall for dinner an extra ten minutes earlier than usual in order to execute the first part of the plan.

"Why, Evans, you're looking particularly smashing this evening," drawled the infamous James Potter when she sat down next to him. Lily rolled her eyes but did not dispute him – she had taken extra pains with her appearance that evening.

"He's not wrong," chimed in – of course – Sirius Black, who was sitting opposite James. "But really, you don't have to try and impress us, we already like you well enough."

"Actually, it's for that boy over there," Lily said, pointing to an unfortunate Slytherin first year who had just dumped an entire bowl of pudding into his lap.

Sirius gave a bark of laughter and James promptly began choking on his pumpkin juice.

"Robbing the cradle a bit, yeah?" Sirius said as James finished choking.

"I don't even know his name," Lily explained, so that they would know she was joking.

James feigned shock. "You don't know his name? Why Evans, you slag!"

Lily promptly hit him upside the head while Sirius shook his head sadly. "Our own Head Girl..."

The two boys burst into hysterics and Lily couldn't help but join them. Despite the animosity of the previous years, it was nice being friendly with the Marauders. In fact, if Lily were honest, she was quite glad that James had become Head Boy this year.

"If you two are quite done, I have to go talk to someone." She had spotted Benjy walking towards the other end of the table. Smoothing down her hair, Lily got up and approached him.

"Lily," Benjy inclined his head towards her amicably.

"Hullo, Benjy. I was just wondering if I could nick some of your pumpkin juice, we ran out over there." She gestured vaguely to the other end of the table.

"Help yourself," he said, and Lily flashed him her most brilliant smile. As she leaned over him to grab the pitcher, she "casually" dropped a crumpled bit of parchment into his lap.

"I'll see you around," she said, in what she hoped was an alluring voice. With that said, she made her way back to her seat, giddy at accomplishing the first part of her plan.

"Meet me in the 2nd floor corridor (by the stairwell) at 8," the note said. That left her a good two hours to prep herself.

Feeling particularly cheery, Lily sat back down and topped off James's goblet with the pitcher she had filched just because she could. She looked up and noticed Sirius studying her curiously and James looking off moodily.

"Who died?" she joked. Which, given the times, probably wasn't the most appropriate of jokes.

James got up and looked at Sirius. "I'll meet you in the Common Room."

"You're still helping with that...thing, right?" Sirius asked. James nodded once more and was off.

Ignoring the suspicious reference to some future prank or another, Lily flashed a look at Sirius, as if to say, "What's his problem?"

"So," Sirius began, sending her a pointed look. "What's the deal with you and Fenwick?"

"Deal? What deal? There is no deal!" Lily sputtered, gathering up her things to disguise her flushed cheeks. Sirius arched a brow and looked as if he didn't believe her, which made Lily all the more flustered. "I swear, there isn't a deal. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a charms essay to finish."

Trying to looking as innocent and deal-less as possible, Lily gathered her things and made for the Gryffindor Tower, if only to escape the mad interrogator that was Sirius Black.

She spent the next hour and a half or so in preparation for what she was determined to be the best kiss of her life: She applied a coat of lip balm stolen from Marlene but wiped it off when she realized it was color-changing. She practiced puckering her lips but had to stop because she was disturbing her roommates. She walked around the dorms with a stack of books on her head – she didn't really know why she did that one, but she always saw girls doing it in Muggle films. One last pep talk from Marlene, and nearly ten hairstyle changes later, she was ready.

Surprisingly, the walk to the second floor stairwell wasn't nerve-wracking in the slightest. She even stopped to talk with a classmate for a bit. As a result, she was running a little late and wondered if perhaps Benjy had already left.

No, he was there, Lily determined as she rounded the corner. The stairwell was dimly lit, so much so that she could barely make out his silhouette, but she recognized the dark hair and tall stature. His back was facing her and Lily felt her heart rate promptly pick up. There. All it had taken to get her properly flustered again was seeing him.

A rush of adrenaline took over and compelled her to step forward, place a hand on his forearm, and spin him around to face her. Well, she thought he was facing her; she couldn't exactly tell with it being so dark.

She heard a hoarse and surprised sounding, "Lily?" - which should have been the first clue - but by the time it registered she had already pressed her lips to his.

At first, he seemed too shocked to properly respond, which, Lily reasoned, was to be expected. After all, she had practically jumped him. However, once the initial shock wore off, he began participating more than enthusiastically. In fact, he all but shoved her up against the wall and ravished her mouth.

Lily had expected to be blown away, but this...this was something else entirely. His hands slid into her belt loops, rocking her against him to some kind of internal music as his mouth moved deliciously against hers. Tongues swirling, heart thumping, his lips hot and sweet – Lily had never been kissed like this before. She indulged for a moment longer, until her head was set to explode with lack of breath.

It took every bit of strength to break away. She looked down at her feet, taking in large gulps of air.

"Where the bloody hell did that come from?" said a voice tinged with happy amusement. A voice, Lily realized, that sounded nothing at all like Benjy Fenwick's.

In fact, that voice sounded an awful lot like...

"James?" Lily gasped breathlessly. There was no bloody way she had just snogged James sodding Potter. No bloody way.

James apparently took this as encouragement and began doing fantastic things to the hollow of her neck with that bloody mouth of his.

"For a moment there," he said, his voice hot on her neck, "I thought you fancied that ponce, what's-his-face."

"Wait, James-" The sensation of him sucking on her earlobe was enough to completely blank out her mind. Much to her horror, she actually found herself clutching his jet black hair and sighing rather audibly. The sound of his deep chuckle melted her insides, but she needed to focus. "James," she said, exasperated, "stop for a minute, okay?"

"Whatever for?" He gave her a quick peck on the mouth and then resumed grinning his goofy grin.

She took a step back from him, the panic setting in. "This...I...we..." Her scrambled thoughts floated back to Benjy, who would be arriving any second now. "I've got to go."

On that despicably ambiguous note, she sprinted down the corridor, ignoring James's utterly bewildered expression and the weakness in her limbs. She sprinted all the way up to the Tower, ignoring those who greeted her or tried to strike up a conversation. She sprinted until she arrived in the girls dormitories, where, upon entering, she collapsed onto her four-poster bed.

Lily Evans was fucked. Totally and completely fucked.

"Maybe you could plead insanity, or that someone was impersonating you via Polyjuice Potion," Marlene McKinnon suggested.

They were lounging on her bed, hangings drawn, with Lily's face buried in a mountain of pillows.

"Now that's just stupid," she said in a muffled voice...then a little desperately, "Do you think it would work?"

Marlene shrugged. "Probably not, but you can't hide up here forever."

"I'm not hiding," Lily said. "It's a Saturday morning. I'm simply...resting."

"Is that what they're calling denial these days?"

Lily chose not to dignify that with a response. Instead, her mind drifted to the millionth time towards that steamy moment in the corridor. James's hands all over her, his hot mouth pressing kiss after delicious kiss onto her lips – it was official: Lily Evans was going crazy.

Because not only had she snogged James Potter's face off in the second floor stairwell, but she had LIKED it.

In fact, she wanted to do it again. And again. And again. And then after that, a few more times.

This was just too much for the poor redhead.

Who would have known that after one brilliant snog she'd be thinking about James Potter in that way? Definitely not her, that's for sure.

Now that she'd thought of it, Benjy Fenwick was really no match for the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Who was she kidding trying to convince herself otherwise? And it seemed as if her friend James had been harboring some more-than-platonic feelings towards her as well.

"Maybe you could give him the good old 'what happens in corridors stays in corridors' spiel."

Lily hit her with a pillow. "I'm not a slag!" She sighed. "I know what I have to do."

"But the question is," Marlene said, "are you going to do it?"

She was going to do it. She couldn't bloody believe it, but she was going to do it.

There was no way that she was going to storm into the Gryffindor Common Room to talk to James Potter about her more-than-platonic feelings for him.

Except, she was. Lily practically shoved the fifth year who was crowding the Portrait Hole aside as she made her way over to plush couches in the corner where, sure enough, James Potter and company were lounging about.

"James?"

His dark head shot up and he looked...she didn't know. She did, however, feel a flush dominate her cheeks and...was it just her or was it unbearably hot all of a sudden?

"Could I talk to you for a second?" She saw Remus exchange looks with Peter, and stuck her tongue out at Sirius's raised eyebrows while James got up.

He followed her into the corridor outside the Common Room.

"Listen," he said, before she could open her mouth. He ran a hand through his hair anxiously. "I don't really know what happened last night, but I guess you know now that I still have...feelings for you, and I know that we're friends-"

"James-"

"-and that's good-"

"James!"

She knew then – for sure – that it was true: She fancied James Potter.

"You don't have to say anything, I know-"

She put one hand over his mouth and the other ran through his unruly hair. His eyes widened comically.

Lily laughed. "I like you too."

Then, stifling a giggle, she replaced her hand on his mouth with her lips.

"Gee," Sirius said, when Lily and James joined them a good half-hour later with messy hair and stupid grins, "I wonder what you two were up to."

Lily shrugged innocently, but her grin gave her away. "What happens in corridors stays in corridors."

END.

Note: Tell me what you think via REVIEW. Perhaps then I'll post a multi-chap LJ. Heh heh. Tempting, right?