A/N: 'So I have this friend and I love her to bits but...' is sort of where this came from. Because we all have plenty of friends like that. And we love them to bits. But.

Loud Love

by padfoot

...

Marlene McKinnon loves loudly. She loves in bellowing calls across huge rooms and high-pitched squeals at breakfast when she's reading her mail. She loves in sneaked hugs from behind, smiling kisses on cheeks, and silly, flirting winks in the classroom when Professor Binns is droning on.

Lily Evans doesn't love loudly.

That's not to say she isn't loud, because she very much is loud, especially when she has an opinion that demands to be heard. Her voice is loud and when she's angry her flaming hair and her flailing arms and her wicked eyes are deafening to most adversaries. But she doesn't love loudly, not the way Marlene does.

Marlene describes herself as a hugger. She befriends everyone she meets. She eye-rollingly puts up with Sirius throughout the years, even when behind closed doors she calls him a prick (then giggles about it).

Marlene plonks herself on Alice's bed and gossips about boys, and Lily moves closer where she sits on the floor but doesn't dare to try and squeeze onto the bed as well. There are already two people up there. They don't need her taking up space. And the floor is fine and perfectly comfortable, and Lily is mostly "hmm"-ing and "yeah"-ing, so it's not like Alice needs her to be closer.

That's how Lily loves – at a distance. Not distantly, not detached, but unobtrusively. She doesn't want her love to get in people's way.

Marlene screams in distraught agony when James Potter plummets from his broomstick and his body thumps onto the dusty ground. Marlene pushes through the crowd and vaults over the fence at the front of the stand and is on the ground by James' side sooner than Sirius is. The two of them sit by his still form, Marlene sobbing and wiping her eyes with a viciously courageous expression. Lily sits on her bench and thinks she might faint, not feeling courageous at all. Thankfully no one is looking at her, though.

It's not that Marlene is fake, she isn't. Her love is genuine and deep and definitely as valid as anyone else's. She just isn't shy or embarrassed about it. She'll rave about her favourite pop group or her latest fictional crush. She advertises her love to the world: look how I feel, isn't it grand?

Marlene is sort of the Lizzie Bennet of love – honest and to-the-point – whereas Lily is more like Jane. Without the beauty or the innate kindness.

At night in the Common Room, Alice waves goodbye and goes off to the Library with Frank, and the only ones left are Lily, Marlene and the Marauders. Marlene falls dramatically back against Remus's side, where he sits beside her on the floor, reading. Remus barely glances up. Lily watches and shrugs, irritated without really knowing why. She recrosses her legs and bumps her foot against Sirius, who practically jumps a mile in the air, letting out a shout of surprise.

"Sorry," Lily mumbles.

Sirius grunts back, "S'all right."

And they all go back to their work.

Too soon, Alice returns and goes up to bed, and Marlene follows her with a yawn (and not before giving everyone a goodnight kiss on the cheek). Touching the spot on his cheek where Marlene kissed him with a half-smile, Peter stands and heads off as well, and Sirius takes that as his cue to place his own loud kisses on everyone's cheeks (and one on the lips of a shocked-looking Remus, which Sirius says is "For luck" with a salacious wink) before going up to his dorm. With a glance between Lily and James, Remus quietly packs up his things, and Lily doesn't even notice he's gone too until she finishes off her essay and looks up to find herself and James alone but for the glowing red coals of the dying fire.

"Oh, I didn't realise it was so late," Lily says, "You don't need to stay up for me."

James looks up from the book he is reading, pushing his glasses up his nose as he does. The gesture makes Lily smile.

"Don't flatter yourself, Lily," he laughs, "I'm here because McGonagall will kick me very hard in the arse if I don't do this reading before tomorrow. She says I'm not 'working to my potential'. Whatever that means."

Lily laughs too, setting down her quill and parchment and standing up from the couch to move over to James in his armchair. He has looked back down to his book, and is stubbornly keeping his eyes on it, even though he must be aware of Lily standing before him. She steps around to behind him, leaning over the back of the armchair and resting her hands on his shoulders. He still doesn't react, and idly turns a page. Lily leans forward, her hands running down James' chest and her chin coming to rest on top of his head.

"I never knew you cared this much about Transfiguration," she whispers.

"I never knew you cared this much about me," James replies, closing his book with a snap.

He ducks his head down to move her chin off it and looks around at her, his hands coming to clasp hers where they rest against his stomach.

"Didn't you?" Lily asks, "I mean, I know I'm not Marlene, but-"

"I was joking," James interrupts, "Of course I know you love me. So much more than Marlene does."

"Even though I don't kiss you goodnight in front of everyone?"

"Yes."

"Even though I have never once, and never intend to, covered your eyes with my hands and said, 'Guess who?'?"

James sighs as if it is a great regret of his that this has never occurred and says, "Even in spite of that."

"Even though I've never yelled at you across a room to get your attention?"

"Well that's not true, you've definitely yelled at me across a room. Plenty of rooms, actually."

"But not necessarily in a loving way," Lily points out.

James grins up at her, "I've always thought we argue particularly lovingly," and pecks her on the cheek.

Lily laughs again and smiles wider.

She doesn't love loudly, no, not at all. But she does love deeply, and truly, if not a bit ridiculously. And she loves James Potter and he loves her back. Whether loud or soft, their love is present and real. Marleen McKinnon couldn't claim that.