A/N: I'm so miserable and under the weather right now that I'm almost underground (does that even make sense?), but I wanted to post something. I'm so sorry for the lack of updates, guys. Please hang in there. I hope this makes up for something.

I'm also trying something different with this, a bit of a style-tweak, so... I hope it's not too annoying. Lots of yummy parenthesis. This is also the closest that I will probably ever get to an M rating. (I don't believe that this is completely M - if it is, let me know, and I'll ratchet it up.) And also to songfic, though this doesn't seem like it at all, and... none of the lyrics really apply. Title was taken from Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight." Anyway: please enjoy, and thank you all so much for being so awesome.

As always,
Mina

There are times that she sits in the back of the classroom, utterly bored and tired and just plain uninterested (even though she should be paying rapt attention to Binns, should be taking copious notes, should be learning something that will keep her from becoming the stupid muggle she feels like sometimes), and stares. Sometimes it seems painfully obvious (even to herself, who tries to hide it) that something's going on, but they wouldn't be able to prove it if they managed to catch her. Besides, she could just as easily be staring at the board, or at the frizzy ends of Garrett's hair that got fried off in Charms, or at the crack of Peter's ass.

(Even though she's not.)

The (un)fortunate arrangement came about the first day of the year. They entered the classroom (first come, first serve, and luckily Lily Evans is always, always prompt) and took their seats, ready for some stimulatin' learnin'. Of course, it just happened to be History of Magic, and their teacher just happened to be a dreary git of a ghost, and they just happened to sit a few rows ahead of her, right in her line of sight.

(Not that she noticed. At first.)

But repetitive lectures on Goblin Wars that have already been ground into her brain get tiresome, and her mind tends to wander when not stimulated. (To windows, for example, or to classmates that she hates.) The view outside the window doesn't change much, and there are only so many times she can watch Hagrid throw children into puddles of mud full of creatures that will probably tear their socks up. Her morals won't allow her to lay her head down to sleep. She can't draw. (She's afraid of what will come out of the end of her quill if she attempts to doodle.) She doesn't want to talk to Dorcas. Siobhan is flashing her legs to some poor bloke at the desk three aisles over. And, well, in the front of the room, the back of his head doesn't speak, won't exactly drive her insane, so she can't find a reason not to watch. (Or one she doesn't push away immediately after she comes up with it, like the one that tells her she's going absolutely mental. That one doesn't count.)

It's just… okay, he's a man. (Sometimes.) She's a woman. (All the time… sometimes.) It makes sense, right? Maybe it's just pheromones, or whatever it was Siobhan was trying to explain to her the other night when they were talking about sex and wangs and all that nonsense that Dorcas turned colors beyond red at, but God, she can't help it. (She's tried. Kind of.) He sits there with his oxford shirt stretched across his back and his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the way he lounges back in his chair gives her a better view of his hair sticking up all over the damn place, and, of course, his neck.

She knows that the whole is more than the sum of its parts (or something like that), but his neck has to count for, like, a large portion. (His forearms might come in a close second.) There's a little scruff of dark hair at the back of his head that she'd like to run her fingers through, and a bump of his spine that is just noticeable above his collar that she'd like to feel against her palm, and when he turns his head, there's that delicious little muscle that pulls her eyes and runs straight up to his jaw line that might take third. Or his eyes. Or his glasses. (They're a bit sexy, if she's to be honest.)

(Good thing she's not.)

The bell rings as she's (subconsciously) tracing the lines of his shoulders, imagining the patterns of his muscles underneath his skin, the curve of his shoulder blades, the bumpy ridge of his spine, and she doesn't quite snap out of it until Siobhan pinches her on the sensitive spot on the back of her arm and tells her that they're leaving for dinner. Lily stands, throws her blank parchment (not completely – there's a Snitch on the corner, invisible to her mind-in-denial) and quill into her bag, and pulls the strap over her shoulder.

She's the last one out. She gives a half-hearted, habitual wave over her shoulder (Binns has probably floated through the wall by now; she probably looks like a freak, waving to nobody), and she's almost to the library, where the prefects meeting is to be held, when a hand grabs her wrist and yanks her into what appears to be an empty classroom.

(It is. They've been here before. She's intimately acquainted with the desk nearest the door, the one that left a splinter in her thigh the last time. But it's a good thing she's not honest.)

There's no time to berate him for possibly bruising her wrist or getting them caught or having no tact (or maybe she doesn't want to complain – impromptu snogging in empty classrooms isn't terribly horrible) because he's pushing her against the closed door and pressing his mouth against hers. A hand is in her hair and one's on her waist, making quick work of untucking her shirt, his rough fingers grazing the skin of her hips, and she sighs into his kiss (because he's incorrigible, and, dishonestly, it's irresistable) before she grabs his neck and runs her tongue along his bottom lip.

His laugh is hot and husky against her face and his glasses press against her forehead as he pulls back ("I'm not an object to be ogled at, Evans") but she has no patience for this and pulls him down to meet her, threading a set of fingers in his hair and assigning the others to the buttons of his shirt. She's got one undone (she's losing her touch) when his hand finds the small of her back and pulls her into him, eliciting a breathy little moan that escapes her throat and mortifies her. (Not that she'd let it show.)

She growls, biting his lip and yanking at his tie, and wraps a leg around his. He gasps into her mouth (she doesn't play fair – this is a big girl's game), his tongue freezing against hers momentarily, before his brain kicks into gear again and his hand abandons her hair to move to better territory. His hand kneads the skin of her thigh, nice and warm, and she feels the salacious curve of his lips against hers ("I'm not an object for you to feel up whenever you'd like, Potter") as she abandons the bloody buttons and jerks his shirttails out to press her (cold) bare hands against his (warm) bare back.

He jumps. "Bloody – "

"Language, Potter," she reminds him, trailing kisses across his clenched jaw, his ear, his neck. She presses a light kiss to the muscle she'd been admiring earlier (nicer up close, even nicer underneath her mouth), to his pulse, fluttering wildly with the rate of his (their) breathing. "You're in the company of the Head Girl. I wouldn't want to dock you any points for foul language."

He doesn't respond to that (at least not in words), pulling gently on the back of her head to take her mouth again, kissing her deeply, his hand moving farther up her thigh. His thumb presses against the soft flesh where the hem of her skirt meets bare skin, farther above her knee than he'd ever gone (but this has never happened before – honest), and she has to pull away, lean her head back against the door as he breathes on her neck.

"Fair play," he whispers against her ear, pushing her control out of reach when she'd really, really like it back right about now. She doesn't know what's going on or where her hands are at or how ridiculously raspy her breath is because his mouth is doing that thing he does with his lips and his tongue and just, Merlin and God, she wishes he would cut it out, already.

(Even though she doesn't.)

(Ever.)

"Mmm, right – right there," she hears herself mumble. (She didn't say it consciously. Okay, she did, but just because she wanted to see how it would affect him. He almost bites a chunk of her neck, almost buckles. She grins.)

She steals her control back and pushes him away (reluctantly) before he can snatch her up again. Her hands immediately go to her skirt, pulling it down, and then to her shirt, tucking it back in and buttoning a few buttons on the top (when did he… actually, she doesn't think she wants to know), and then to her hair, which hopefully doesn't look as sloppy as it feels. She's aware that her lips are probably swollen and she's a little out of breath, but she knows a way to get from here to the lavatory without being seen (not that she's had to travel it before).

When she looks up at him, he's put together (yet still disheveled), leaning against a desk with his hands in his pockets, that stupid smirk on his face. "Same time tomorrow, Evans?"

She scoffs and picks her bag up off of the floor, ignoring the way his eyes gleam in the dim torchlight (on second thought, his eyes could be tied for first, maybe a little bit bigger than his neck), the way he looks at her as if she's just an object to ogle. (She briefly wonders what he imagines the unequal sum of her parts are before shoving that thought right out of her mind.) Opening the door and not checking to see if he's following (he will be), she strides out into the hall with her back straight and her head high. Her shoes are soft on the marble floor and she thinks that she's home safe (her hand pressed gently to her smiling lips), when she feels a hand smack her rear end and almost jumps out of her skin.

But James is nowhere to be seen (of course he isn't) when she whirls around. Irritated, annoyed, (giddy like a grade school girl), she lets out a little scream and says it anyway because she knows he's around somewhere, waiting somewhere (like a schoolboy) for her reaction: "Ugh! I hate you, Potter!"

(Even though she doesn't.)