He sat at the exact same spot where Lily had left him.

Except that now, he was unusually alone.

As she crossed the Gryffindor Common Room, James perceived her entrance with a sip of the firewhisky bottle in his hand and a furrowed brow. Finally joining him by the fireplace, Lily threw herself in the closest chair, the force of all her frustrations weighing her down.

And she still carried those bloody lilies.

James looked to an imaginary watch on his wrist.

"Now that ended quickly."

Ignoring his not so funny remark about the duration of her date, Lily took her high-heels off. The sound of them hitting the ground echoed through her ears in a chorus of hallelujah.

"Where is everyone?"

"Well, it's Valentine's Day, so… either celebrating it with a date or pretending it doesn't exist."

"And which one are you doing?"

"I'm doing this." James solemnly gestured to the bottle. Judging by its content, he had just started drinking.

"You can't drink this here", she argued, "it's a massive violation!"

"Are you gonna to turn me in, Evans?"

"You know what? I just might!"

They stared at each other in defiance, the way they had done at least once a day ever since they met. The moment prolonged itself until the air get filled with their laughter, the easy, intimate kind, that allowed joy to linger even when it came to an end.

It was exactly what she needed and the fact that Potter was the one to provide it still amazed her to no end. From a rough started, they had developed a friendship that became a huge part of her life, and after the disaster that was her evening, Lily was really grateful for the distraction of finding him there.

"Do you want some?"

"Yes! Please!"

James poured the liquid into the tiny glass he had left untouched on the console table, then offered it to her. She maintained her eyes on his as her hand went for the bottle instead.

"Thank you."

"Very funny." He rolled his eyes while she laughed and took the bottle to her lips, the liquid immediately burning down her throat and spreading through her body.

"And here I thought it was physically impossible to separate the four of you." Lily commented. It was pretty rare to get James alone, without Sirius, Peter or Remus as his shadows.

"We have our moments." Agreed James, a smile on his face. "So… Want to talk about it?" With his chin, he waved to the bouquet, revealing the sharped line of his jaw.

Lily looked at the flowers, then back at him with hesitation.

"I'll be good, I promise." Lily could tell he was being his most charmous self. Luckily, she had years of experience on warding it off. "Listen… Either you talk to me or wait for the girls to arrive. I don't like to brag, but right now I'm your best option.

"You love to brag," she corrected, "but I suppose you are the least of all evils."

His expression melted into fake gratitude, then he tilted his head throwing a hand over his heart at the same time.

"Thank you, Evans!"

She laughed, despite of herself.

"Well… Mary set me up on a date with this Ravenclaw bloke..."

"So I've heard."

"And he is so smart and... handsome and… a thorough good person."

"Debatable."

Lily pointed the bottle to him in accusation.

"You promised to be good."

"Alright." And finishing his drink in a shot, he added. "Sorry. Carry on."

"The thing is… he is perfect. And I didn't feel attracted to him at all! What is wrong with me?" As soon as she said the words, her lovely sister invaded her mind with quite a list of blunt answers. Drowning her doubts in alcohol, she waited for his response.

"D'you really want to know?" He whispered, his hand motioning her to get closer. She did.

"I really do."

"Nothing! You're just too good for those twats."

"Would you take this serious?" Lily playfully turned his face away, making him crinkle his nose and laugh.

"But I am! Here, I'll prove it." Putting his glasses back in place, James looked at her, confidence exhaling from him like a natural perfume. He considered her for a moment, then catched the flowers, brows as high as his ego. "Lilies for a Lily? Really?"

"Well... I think they're pretty." As much as Lily agreed with James, the chance of contradicting him was too tempting to let it pass.

"So were the last three. It's a terrible joke and they should all be ashamed of themselves." She smiled at his indignation, fully aware that the joke didn't distune at all from the ones he made each and every day. "And let me guess… He took you to Hogsmeade?"

"Hogsmeade is perfectly fine."

"Yes, it is. And I know that because we go there at least twice a week since third year!"

"It's way more exciting than what you're making it sound like."

"Did he call you 'flower'?" James asked, sounding like a doctor about to confirm an awful diagnosis.

"No."

"Lily pad?"

She sighed, defeated.

"Twice."

"See? That's just catastrophe waiting to happen. Which is nonsense, considering how easy it is to sweep you off your feet. If you know what you're doing, that is."

"And I suppose you do."

"Absolutely."

"Excuse me, since when did you became an expert on the subject of me?"

"Are you doubting my abilities, Evans?"

"I certainly am."

His eyes glowed ferocious at the face of a challenge. James licked his lips and a fire that nothing had to do with her long forgotten drink blazed through her veins and burned at the pit of her stomach.

She still opted for cutting out the whiskey, just in case.

"Well, you shouldn't. If it was I who was taking you out on a date, I'd do it right."

"Oh, really? How would that go?"

"For one…" He said, hiding the lilies behind his back and leaning towards her, everything about his posture screaming 'mischief'. He paused for a second, then his hand brought the bouquet back, filling the thin space between their noses.

Only it wasn't a selection of lilies anymore. Blocking her vision, a delicate arrangement of white daisies was being offered to her. Potter always have been a prodigy when it came to transfiguration, after all. What really impressed her was that he remembered what her favorite flower was.

She accepted the bouquet, their hands slightly brushing.

"I could have done that myself." Argued Lily, refusing to give in just yet, although the words lost all meaning when she smiled and closed her eyes, inhaling the sweet aroma of the flowers. It took her right back to the little park near home, summerbreeze shaking the wild grass under her bare feet, sunshine bathing her with warmth as she discovered the wonders of magic by making daisies just like those dance around the air, then close and open in her palm.

"Oh, please! I'm only getting started." Something about his tone recreated the warmness of the memory way too vividly. It didn't help that she could feel his gaze following her every move as she placed the bouquet on her lap to undress the coat, placating the heat.

"Then, by all means, don't let me get in your way."

Encouraged, James reclaimed their previous closeness.

"I'd sneak you to this great muggle pub Remus took us last summer. The band that sings there do Beatles songs every night. I could take you dancing." He all but sang the last sentence, as if waving a candy in front of a child and knowing very well how appealing the offer was to her.

"You don't like dancing." She reminded him.

James Potter had countless, undeniable talents. It was infuriating, really, how good he was at everything and how easy he made it all seem: from quidditch to transfiguration to pushing all her buttons down when he had his mind set on being an arse — that last one was really a gift. But dancing wasn't one of them.

"You do." He answered with a shrug, like somehow the simple remark was more than enough to make it worth the effort.

To prove it, James used his wand again — this time at plain sight — and dramatically fell to one knee before her, an outstretched hand in invitation as the unmistakable first chord of A Hard Day's Night filled the air.

She laughed and shook her head at his expectant face, but took his hand nonetheless.

Prompting to his feet, James wasted no time in spinning her around the room to the upbeat rhythm of the song, stopping right before she could get dizzy. Strands of red hair inevitably started falling on her face, occasionally being uplifted by her hastened breath.

They jumped and shook their heads back and forth as the melody went on, James singing every lyric back to her as she laughed at the clumsiness of their dance moves. His glasses were falling out of place again, his hair was in a bigger mess than she had ever seen it and all the while he was laughing alongside her.

Then the song ended, but silence never had the chance to rise, since Something followed after.

"Nice move!" Lily admitted, instantly recognizing the drastic change in the mood.

As if unable to be surprised by his own brilliance anymore, James merely cocked his head a bit and opened his arms to her. She took the hint and closed the distance between them, allowing him to embrace her waist.

Lily stood on her tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck. If he lowered himself just a little, their foreheads would touch. Instead, James frowned.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" She joked, letting him lead them through the new flow.

"No, I mean what are you doing with your feet, shortcake?"

"What? Can't I be wearing high-heels in this scenario of yours?"

"I think that's just an excuse for you to go ahead and kiss me already."

They were indeed pretty close, she would give him that. What she wouldn't give was the satisfaction of seeing her blush.

"The way I see it, the more of my feet I keep off the floor, the less likely you are to step on them."

Then James awarded her with a whole body laughter. It was her favorite one and the fact she had caused it was endearing to say the least. The boy knew how to laugh, with his deep timbre and shiny hazel eyes. Lily could feel the vibrations everywhere they touched.

"Come on, I'm not that bad." Truth be told, he wasn't doing such a terrible job. But then again, his movements were far from smooth and the both of them were essentially rocking comfortably in place.

His laugh turned into a smile while George Harrison kept singing about his lover and suddenly Lily was even more grateful James was there, although it didn't make sense for him to be alone in that of all nights.

"I guess so." Her smile mirrored his and she realized she had been holding his gaze for far too long. Turning away, Lily let curiosity take the best of her. "You never told me why you were drinking here alone, though."

"We're not here." Corrected James. "We're at the pub."

"Right!" So he didn't want to talk about it now. She would give him time. "So we drank and danced, then what?"

Without thinking about it, she lowered her feet and let her cheeks rest against his chest. At first, Lily thought she had imagined the accelerated rate of his heart, but then James tensed and she feared to have crossed one of the lines they had drawn specifically to keep their once complicated relationship civil and function. And all because she got carried away.

An apology was already forming on her lips when James simply put his chin atop her head, easing her tension.

"Then I'd bring you back for a moonlight walk by the lake."

"That's actually quite romantic."

"Romantic? What? No. I just want to show the giant squid that the best man did win."

"For Merlin's sake, will you ever let that go? It's been a year!"

Tried as she must, it was impossible for Lily to hide her amusement. How would her past version react if someone had told her that someday, she would be laughing at the worst day of her life with one of the very persons responsible for its infamousness?

Yet, there they were.

"Obviously no. You hurt my feelings. So where were we?"

"Let me see… You were bragging to a mollusk."

"Oh, yes! After that, we could sneak into the kitchen-"

"Oi, have you noticed how 'sneak' is a huge part of your vocabulary?"

"-and grab a snack."

It wasn't until he stopped their slow side to side swing that Lily registered the music was gone. She looked up at him. All of a sudden, the embrace the pair was tangled on seemed unappropriated, so they quickly parted. The shared stare, however, lingered on.

"W-what happens next?"

"I walk you to the dorm like a perfect gentleman."

She did her best not to sound too disappointed and to figure out why on Earth she was.

"Well, they all have done that."

Grinning and acting like she hadn't just spoken, James captured a strand of resilient hair still on her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. All the while his face was getting closer and closer until it hovered over hers just in time to finally complete his trail of thought.

"And kiss you goodnight." He said, at last.

For the briefest of seconds there, Lily wondered if he really would — wished for it, even — but she knew better. It was in moments like these that someone would come in or one of them would go back to their senses before it was too late, adding another opportunity to their crescent list of 'almost'.

Lily didn't resent of it, though. It was probably destiny's way of telling what was already known. They had worked pretty hard to solidify the great terms in which they now were and it was nice to be in the same room as him without having it turned into a war zone.

There was no need to ruin that in the name of a silly attraction that wasn't even reciprocal anymore, since that — as he had so rightfully put it — Lily had told with every letter that she would rather go out with the giant squid than him. After that, despite of his incessant jokes and teasing, James seemed pretty excited on being her friend and nothing more, which was something she could understand.

And so she waited for it, but no interruptions came along. It was James himself who pulled back leisurely, apparently deciding he got his point across and now it was time for her to admit how right he was and that James knew her like the back of his hand.

But before she could lost her nerve, before she could count and recount all of the reasons why what she was about to do was a terrible, terrible idea in her mind, Lily closed the small distance he had created between them and covered his lips with hers.

Lily could tell he wasn't expecting it from the little gasp he emitted to the stillness of his frame. She had acted immature and impulsive and her mistake would take a lot of explaining and apologies to be fixed.

Later, she would blame it on the drinks and maybe — just maybe — they could pretend it never happened. Right then, she could only focus on how surprisingly soft his lips were. Her heart appeared to had taken upon itself to replace the lack of music, beating so loud it was all she could hear.

Ultimately, it was James' turn to take her by surprise. His arms went back to her waist with the familiarity of a traveler returning home, pulling her to him tigh while offering the support she needed to reach him with comfort.

He tilted his head to the side and she slightly opened her mouth, providing a better access that James promptly claimed. He tasted like firewhisky and everything Lily had been craving to find without even knowing what she was searching for.

Lily had been stripped off her naive expectations about romance a few heartbreaks ago. She still believed in love and probably always would — the realest version of it, at least —, without the leg popping kisses and the running away together at sunset.

She had never hoped to discover the real thing could be a thousand times better than any music, book or movie had painted it to be, but with James kissing her back so passionately, there was no denying: it was.

Timing couldn't be worse. Between their school obligations and the imminent war circling upon them like a vulture, a relationship that was doomed from the start just wasn't the wisest thing to throw in the brew.

But it felt so right.

Too soon, they had to break apart and breath. Lily opened her eyes slowly to meet his dumbfounded expression, blinking at her like she had just woken him up. Recovering remarkably fast, James flashed her the cockiest smile.

"If we leave right now, we can still make it to that pub."

A/N: this was my first time writing for Jily/Harry Potter so please overlook any inaccuracies. It's been a long time since I consumed HP content. Also this was a self-indulgent fic, so... please be nice? That being said, I really hope you enjoy. (P.S.: I know all of my followers are InuYasha blogs and probably won't read this but I still want to say that I don't intend to stop writing for Inukag, this is just a little breather, okay?)