Epilogue

'What have you lost, Lily?' Marlene frowned at her friend who had stopped and emptied her bag for the third time that day.

'My journal.' Lily said, slightly worried, 'I've got something I want to write down, but it's not here – I might've left it in our room, I wrote in it yesterday afternoon, but I thought I took it down with me to the common room.'

'Well maybe if you tell me what you did between last writing in it and now, that might help.' Alice pipped up.

'Right.' Lily stuffed everything back into her bag and the four girls (Lily, Alice, Mary and Marlene) sat together on the stone seat in the Transfiguration courtyard. 'Where do I start?'

'What were you writing about?' Mary asked inquisitively.

Lily's cheeks promptly turned red. 'Uh...'

'Potter.' The three girls chorused knowingly, grinning, teasing.

'Shut up.'

'So then you picked up your book and went down into the common room – why?'

'To burn it.' Lily said darkly, 'It's not for anyone's eyes, if anyone finds it and reads it, they're dead.'

'Confess your undying love, dear?'

'If you're not going to help me...' Lily said loudly, getting to her feet, but three pairs of arms grabbed her and forced her to her seat.

'Chill, Lils, we want to help.' Marlene threw an arm around her friend. 'Did you rip out the entry and put it in the fire.'

Lily paused and thought. 'No.' She said slowly, 'Maybe I took it back up.'

'One step at a time.' Mary prompted. 'What happened when you got to the common room.'

Lily closed her eyes, concentrating. 'Potter was there – trying to work on his essay I think, struggling a bit, he looked very tired.'

'Did he talk to you?'

'I don't think he even noticed me – so I went out the portrait hole.'

'The portrait hole? Lily you could have come back up the stairs, what did you do out of the common room?'

Lily's eyes flew open and she blushed. 'I-I got him a cup of coffee.'

Alice's snort set them all off laughing, even Lily laughed weakly with them although more in embarrassment than amusement.

'You forgot all about your journal because you wanted to get him a coffee?' Marlene gasped.

'I'm so stupid.' Lily groaned.

'What did Potter say?' Marlene asked between giggles.

'He didn't, he doesn't know anything.' Lily grinned triumphantly, 'He was dead asleep, face down on his Charms homework and snoring.'

The girls laughed jovially together at the shared image of James Potter asleep at the table.

James Potter glared, how was he supposed to give her the journal back when she was surrounded by her friends? He walked behind them slowly, stealthily; they didn't know he was there.

They stopped and Lily emptied her bag, checking each and every book with a frown of concern. Guilt churned in his stomach, feeling very aware of the small book in his pocket. It took a moment, but everything was back in Lily's bag and her friends sat around her.

James' heart leapt when he saw Lily get to her feet, thinking an opportunity was happening, but sank when her friends pull her back. She seemed to be the focus of the conversation.

James was straining to hear their hushed whispers so hard that he jumped nearly a foot in the air when they all burst out laughing, loudly. Cursing to himself, James untangled himself from the bush he had been hiding in and brushed himself off, irritated.

Right, well if getting her on her own was going to be a difficult task, he was going to face it head on. Trying his hardest to be non-chalet, he strode directly to the group of giggly girls.

Marlene's Quidditch trained eyes spotted her captain first, stared startled at him and quickly delivered an elbow to Lily whose prominent blush returned in full glory and 'shushed' everyone.

Right. Talking about him, were they? Sure to make things all the more difficult. However, he wasn't in Gryffindor for nothing, he stopped in front of them and grinned confidently, friendly.

But before he could say anything, Mary giggled. 'Why is there a branch stuck in your hair?'

James stood patiently with his brows raised as they all giggled at the sight. He rolled his eyes at them and ignoring the fact that the branch was still there and addressed Lily. 'Can I talk to you?'

'Sure.' Lily smirked and stayed where she was, all four girls looked expectantly at him.

Damn it, he hated when they did this to him. He looked pointedly at her.

She stared steely back. 'Spit it out, Potter. What you have to say can be said in front of my friends.'

'Ah, Evans,' James smiled ruefully leaning over so he was eye level and barely an inch away. 'Are you sure you want me to say what I'm going to say in front of your friends?'

Lily could feel the blush crawling up her neck, she hated the fact that he always managed to manipulate her by his closeness. 'Personal space bubble, Potter.' She tried to scold him.

James mercifully backed off, but not without a knowing smirk.

Lily thrust her bag at Marlene because she was smirking as well and with a huff, stood and marched towards a secluded space in the courtyard. 'What's this about, Potter?'

'I found something of yours, Lily.' His cocky tone, quite prominent before, was suddenly shaky, defensive. 'Don't get mad.'

'Why would I...?' Lily stopped dead, paled and looked at him fearfully. 'You've got my journal.'

James, his expression apologetic, pulled it from his pocket and held it out to her.

Lily didn't bother to look at it; instead she was busy studying his eyes, as he was studying hers.

They did this sometimes, purely communicated with their eyes rather than talked, absorbing each other, coming to an understanding that words were not needed for the situation. It was a whole minute before James stepped towards her, forcing the book into her hands.

Only then did Lily look at the book in her hand – it fell open to an entry, but it wasn't her handwriting. Momentarily she was broken out of her revere; she held the page and read.

'You wrote in my book.'

'Yep.'

Ah, the nervousness, it all made sense now.

Lily forced her poker face on as she read the entry, all too aware of James' eyes on her as she read. It was hard to keep the poker face, in fact Lily was sure it slipped a couple of times when she was trying hard not to burst out laughing. However when she came to his last point, the poker face slid and suddenly she was having difficulty breathing. She had reached the end, stopped reading. She stared at those last three words 'I love you' for what was longer than necessary before she closed the book and hugged it to her chest and finding the courage to look up into his eyes again.

'You've got some nerve, Potter, writing in someone else's book.' Lily scolded him, but smiled to show she wasn't angry. 'That's not 'respecting other people's property'.'

James grinned back, his shoulder muscles visibly relaxing. 'So what do you think now, Evans?'

'You're very cute, Potter.' Lily said as a matter of factly.

James scowled and stepped closer. 'I meant my chances of going out with you.'

Lily pretended to contemplate.

'Double shot skinny extra frothy mocha in a mug?' James prompted, stepping closer, feeling rather ridiculously happy that she stepped closer to him, even if it was to pull the branch from his hair.

'As long as you learn to dress yourself.' She said as she fixed up his collar and straightened his loose tie. 'This is the tenth time I've done...' Lily trailed off, her hand still grasping his tie firmly, and she stared up into his hazel eyes only inches from her own. 'You've been doing this on purpose, haven't you? Leaving your collar all skewed so I would get irritated and... mphf.'

James cut her off, sharply.

The kiss ended too soon for Lily, cold air rushed between them and her eyes flew open, almost immediately drowning in his dark eyes.

'Meet you at three broomsticks at ten?'

'Mmhmm.' Lily said, more concentrated on studying the little glints of golden yellow in his eyes.

'Lily?'

'James?'

'Can I have my tie back, please?'

'I remember that day.' James said lazily as he traced patterns on his girlfriends' back. 'Best day of my life.'

'You said that last week when you won the Quidditch Cup.' Lily reprimanded him just as lazily, rather comfortable with her head rested in her usual nook of James' collarbone.

'Oh, yeah.'

'Also when you got that broomstick from your parents for your birthday.'

'Well obviously I was a little over excited.'

'A little?' Lily sat up in his lap.

'Alright, a lot.' James said, poking his tongue out at her.

'And also...'

'Okay! I get the picture! Shush!'

Lily grinned and slung her arms around his broad shoulders as he tried (and failed) to glare at her. Using his shoulders as leverage, she lifted herself off his lap, and kissed him quite soundly.

AN: Finally an epilogue! Woopwoop! And yes, I'm afraid the story stops here.

But I won't! I still have stacks of little fanfics on the move, and one longer one I started but haven't updated in what, nearly a year? Bad TLF *slapswrist*

JKR owns HP