Well, folks, thank you for sticking through this and leaving all your pretty, lovely, endearing, supportive reviews! This is it; I'm vaguely considering a sequel, maybe from James' view, but I don't know, depends. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Nothing is miiiiine, nothing is miiiiine, I wish I had Jaaaaames, la la la laaaaaaa.

Chapter 7 – Privacy

As a child, when rain fell and lightning split the sky in half, thunder reverberating in my parent's house, I'd pull off the blankets of my bed and wrap myself up like a swaddled baby. I would slip underneath my bed and stay there until I was sure that God had stopped bowling and flickering with what I imagined was a gigantic light switch beside him.

That's what I did when I was frightened, afraid.

But at this moment, watching in slow-motion as the light bursts from the tip of my wand – Willow, 10 1/4", swishy – and begins to form a corporeal form, the outline I had produced over and over a week ago just so that I knew I could do it again, in this exact setting, I realize that being frightened and afraid, it was driving me this time.

The magnificent doe's tiny feet land on the damp grass at the precise second when James turns, probably mystified as to why I had shouted the incantation. She – the doe – canters forward towards him and in the light stemming from her body, I can see his eyes are wide, disbelieving, yet realizing at the same time.

All my thoughts and mental strength is funneled into keeping the doe going, keeping her as bright as she was when she leaped out of my wand. Leaving behind a curious glittering mist in her wake, the doe trots in a large circle around James, bowing her head and considering him with such inquisitiveness that he seems drawn towards her and stares right back.

"This…" He grapples for balance as the doe continues to walk slowly, deliberately around him. "This is – is..."

"Interesting?" I suggest, watching the doe step up closer to James, sticking out her nose and sniffing him wearily. "If you don't know what this," I indicate madly at the animal, "means, you're a bloody idiot, James Potter."

With my focus teetering, the doe fades slightly, still sniffing at James' Quidditch robes as he watches in bizarre fascination. Finally, I relinquish all control and the two of us watch as she fades into thin air, the warmth that she had brought me fading as well and reminding me that we're still standing in the glum mist.

"You don't get to decide whether or not somebody loves you," I tell him shortly. "You don't get to assume, you don't. For God's sake, we've been going out for eight months! What on earth makes you think I'm suddenly going to 'see the light' and leave you? My entire life I've been handed the short end of the straw, James. Shadowed by my sister, who proceeded to dub me a freak, befriended by somebody who turned out to be somebody entirely different, being a filthy mudblood – "

He cringes, opens his mouth, ready to berate me for using the term.

" – oh c'mon, James. I'm a mudblood and immensely proud of it, because I haven't stepped down, I've stood up."

Unrefined intensity and emotion pumping through my blood like an antidote, I walk forward, stowing my wand back in my pocket. "And I will continue to stand up, I won't back down. I'm not backing down now, am I? You could resort back to your old ways and I'd still be 140 percent in love with you. I might get mad and hex you, but I'd still be head over heels in love."

The words are hitting him like bullets, except rather than inflicting harm, they loosen him, cause his shoulders to sag more and more, make the corners of his mouth to rise higher and higher.

"I don't need somebody to stand in front of me through everything, protecting me. Not all the time. Just," I reach out and grab both his hands, bringing them up to my chest, holding them tightly, "I just need you to love me. And I need you to continue to look at me like I'm the only woman on the face of the planet, look at me without seeing that I'm different from the rest. You can't fight this," I smile, "because you and I both know it: my Patronus is not just a fluke."

"I don't want to lose you. Ever." His voice is so quiet that it is almost lost in the surroundings. "I'd never be able to – to move on."

"Luckily for you, that's not going to happen." I don't know this for a fact; the future isn't a guarantee, after all, but this is what James needs to hear and I'm going to stick with this, because as far as I'm concerned, I plan on dying old and gray with a plethora of grandchildren, too.

"Things happen – "

"Love happens. Now shut up," I move closer, so close that I can feel his breath on my skin, "and kiss me like you mean it."

But instead of moving his head forward and down, James releases the grip on one of his hands and brings his fingers to my face, tracing the curve of my bottom lip. Then, both of his hands coming up to cup my face, holding me there, he presses his forehead against mine and squeezes his eyes shut.

"I won't let anything happen to you, Lily Evans, I swear it. I love you."

When his eyes open and meet mine, the power of his gaze causes the tears that have collected in the wells in my eyes to spill over, sliding slowly towards his fingertips on my cheekbones. I let out a gasp of a laugh and bring my own fingers to his, clutching them firmly.

"I'm pretty much in love with you, too."

When James kisses me – slow, sensual, with all the time in the world – I can just imagine the sky release over us, a constant downpour, nothing like what emptied out earlier, drenching us to the very bone. But it never comes; instead, the warmth that I had felt while my Patronus was in its form returns to me.

As his hands slide from my wet cheeks down to the soft slope of my neck, slipping over my shoulders and running down my back, soothing circles, bringing me up against him, I wish that time would just stop.

I'm not sure my heart has ever felt so… satisfied.

--

"Who's the superhero who wears his undies outside his pants? And in the comics he's unbelievably hot."

"Underwear Man." Peter promptly collapses sideways on the couch in the most outrageous giggles; he's never held his liquor very well.

I have no idea where James disappeared to – no doubt to find Sirius before he could do anything his inebriated mind would regret later tomorrow, but I'm stuck here, squashed between two drunks: Peter, whose toosh is now dangerously close to my hand (I sneak it onto my lap without any touching) and Joelle, who is almost as equally smashed.

"His name is Spiderman," I correct Peter unnecessarily, but the answer is lost on Jo because she's suddenly become fond of her own foot.

"You know," she says, peeling away her flats and wiggling her toes out into the air. I try not to pay notice to the amount of attention we're suddenly receiving. "I always knew you and James were going to shack up."

"Shack – shack up?"

"Yeah, you know, live together after school and whatnot," Jo clarifies, before twisting on her arse so that she can lay her legs across my lap, her feet snugly resting on Pettigrew's hip, still exposed in the air.

Perhaps he's fallen asleep in that slumped over position…

"What a vulgar term to use, Jo. Shack up? I prefer love each other with every molecule of our beings."

"You're a sap," Joelle declares, pulling her best I'm-so-disgusted expression, except aiming it directly at her constant wiggling toes.

I chuckle at the absurdity of all of this: compacted in between two less-than-sober individuals, what has become of my life? That is a silly question though, because I've never felt so content in the seventeen years I've spent gracing this planet.

"OY, EVANS!"

I jump ten feet off the couch and crane my neck round, seeing where my surname was shouted in a muddled fashion. Having entered the Gryffindor common room moments ago, Sirius was now attempting to make his way over towards the couch except he kept stumbling and was being awkwardly supported by James and Remus, who seem deep in conversation across Sirius.

"Drunk as a skunk," Joelle says, having looked over too. She's hardly one to talk.

Sirius rids himself of James and Remus' helping hands and catapults himself over the arm chair next to the couch, now standing in front of me, swaying just slightly. "I told you there was more to it!" He points a finger at me, adamant on proving that he was the savior of our relationship.

"James?" The back of his thighs knock against the coffee table as he tries to remain poised. "James? Are – are you going to do it?"

"Do what?" slurs Peter from my other side, cheek flattened against the armrest.

"Blimey, Padfoot. You're going to kill yourself if you drink much more. I trust you'll watch him, Moony?"

Lupin sighs and motions for me to get up. Confused, I lift up Joelle's legs and hold them in the air, wondering briefly whether I'll be able to fall back down onto the couch but then it becomes clear when Remus grabs a book off the table. He grabs hold of the legs and then falls in between Jo and Peter's arse.

"Have fun," he winks, as at the exact same moment Sirius topples over the table with something like a squeal.

James offers me his hand with somewhat of a mischievous smile. Concerned and excited at the same time, I clasp my palm in his and we meander our way through the partygoers, up the stairs to his old dorm, the dorm the other three Marauders still inhabit, now with Frank.

"What, you don't want to get wasted?" I ask teasingly as I close the door behind us.

"Nah," he smiles, raking a hand through his hair and glancing around his old dormitory. "I'd rather be sober for this."

It takes me a second to come to the most likely conclusion: raising my eyebrows, I smirk in interest and slight amazement. "Really, James, here? I thought maybe the privacy of our own common room, you know, or maybe your current room…"

Laughing, James gives me a playful look and presses a chaste kiss to my lips, scraping another hand through his hair and that's when I know he's nervous.

"James?" I step forward and snugly wind my arms around his waist. "Have I mentioned how much I love you?"

This brings the biggest, silliest of smiles to his lips that I can't help but kiss persistently, deeply, nothing like on the Quidditch pitch. He's unresponsive at first, but then dominates it, backing me up against the closed dormitory door.

Blissfully engaging in probably one of the most passionate kisses we've exchanged, James' hands skim up my side slowly. I feel his tongue tentatively against my lips and greedily, as much as I hate to admit it, I part my lips in reaction.

Far too fast and before we really realize it, things have progressed past the point of familiarity: I've unbuttoned the simple white pressed shirt he had thrown on before coming to the party and his hands are dangerously high on my torso, his fingertips thisclose to grazing the underside of my bra.

Still caressing my stomach, James pulls away from my aching lips and rests his forehead against mine again. I'm pressed against the door even more but really, I don't want to be anywhere else at the moment.

"We – we don't have to," he whispers practically into my mouth.

I take his hands and bring them out from underneath, enfolding his fists in the material of my shirt, my implications clear. "I want," I whisper teasingly against his lips before dragging my own from the corner of his mouth, across his cheek up towards his ear.

His head falls into my neck, nestles there, as I playfully tug on his earlobe, my shirt still scrunched up in his grip.

"You know we can't do it here," he laughs into my shoulder.

"I know. So take us somewhere else, you big poof."

He lifts his head and smiles, moving his hands away from my shirt and pulling it down properly again. I button back up his shirt, unfortunately hiding that delicious chest of his that I am simply dying to run my fingers over again.

"Pretend like – like…"

"Like we didn't just totally make out in your best mates' room? Alright."

We leave the dorm and tiptoe down the staircase, worried a certain Drunk Sirius Black might corner us. But as we try to dart across the common room, I see him making out with somebody on the armchair he propelled himself over a few minutes ago. With a bolt from the blue, I realize he's making out with none other than Joelle.

Oh, she will definitely hear about this all the way to her death bed.

--

"Are you sure you don't have anywhere else to be?"

"You're a sly, cruel minx, you know that?"

I laugh pleasantly, stepping into James' bedroom and kicking the door shut behind me. "I know, and yet here we are, in your bedroom. Alone." I lean back, arms folded over my chest, surveying James.

"Indeed we are, Miss Cleverness."

"James?"

"Lily?"

"Undress me before I go find somebody who will."

I see a flash of humor and jealousy across his eyes. With a surprised shriek on my part, he grabs me by the hips and lifts me up and away from the door, kissing me in the same desperate, passionate fashion as before, our tongues already dwelling a fight that I've only participated in with a few select guys.

James holds me to him tightly, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, my hands running wild across his strong back, feeling the muscles heave and stretch underneath his shirt. Merlin, this is so incredible.

Instinctively, my legs wrap around his waist and bring us closer, the friction eliciting a garbled moan from my lips. This is way past the point of no return. So far over the line, but I don't want to even think about going back, let alone look.

We're falling onto the bed far sooner than we both probably thought, James pinning me against the mattress and the sheets of a bed – there's a permanent aroma of soap, wood chips and James on the layers – and his lips marking a path down from my mouth to my collarbone.

"James, love," I whisper into the darkness, fighting the prevailing feeling of longing and passion that's rising from the depths of my toes. "Did you – did you, uh, want to talk to me about something?"

My shirt is gone before I can even acknowledge that his hands were under there again.

"No," he answers against the rising and falling of my chest, placing feathery kisses there. "No talking."

--

When I fell asleep, I was thinking of the moments before where never in my life had I felt so connected – physically, emotionally, mentally – to somebody. I was thinking about the marks on my body James had made with a sneaky grin, the half moon scratches on his shoulders from my nails, the way our voices and sounds had molded together.

When I wake up, I want to experience it all over again. But the arm that had been slung around my waist was gone and when my hand slides to the other side of the bed, I find I'm the only occupant.

"James?" I call softly, wondering whether he's in the bathroom but the door is open and the moonlight is trickling in. I glance at the clock – two o'clock in the morning – and then sit up, drawing the thin sheet around my naked body.

As I try to adjust it so that it's a toga of sorts, something catches my attention, something placed majestically on his pillow, looking innocent and yet causing my heart to freeze and restart at a much faster pace. My shaky fingers pick up the item, inspecting it with wide eyes, my lips parted.

I leap off the bed, fiddling with the top sheet and wrapping it tightly around myself, holding it with one hand to my chest so that it remains closed around my frame, the other hand clenched around the simple object.

My shawl drags on the steps when I rush down them in my bare feet. The thing feels suddenly heavy in my hand, heavy and big and significant.

The fire is a dull roar now, barely alive, but James is: sitting on the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in the air, apparently deep in thought.

"What – what is this?" I ask wildly.

He doesn't react at all, just sits there.

"James – this – holy Merlin – oh my God – "

I hear him chuckling and stop freaking out long enough to glare at him with everything I've got. "James William Potter, if you don't – don't say something I'm going to – to punch you!"

"You know I'm awful at saying what's on my mind," he teases, leaning back against the couch and smiling at me, taking in the badly arranged dress I've created around my self.

I walk closer, nearly stumbling on the material, and sit down next to him, searching his face, his eyes. "James…"

"I contacted your parents weeks ago," he mutters bashfully, rubbing a hand through his hair. "They've probably been awaiting a letter from you telling them the good news, but then I just started thinking, you know, about everything… and I never ended up doing it."

I'm feeling really woozy. I'm totally going to faint, collapse right there on the couch, probably fall forward and crack my head on the edge of the table, because I'm just a really embarrassing person and James will have to rush me to the hospital wing because I'd be loosing so much –

"I had it with me in Hogsmeade," James continues, staring at my clenched fist. "I thought about doing it but… I don't know." He sends me a grimace. "You know your boyfriend a complete twat."

I alternate staring between my clenched hand and James, who is now looking at the very nearly extinguished fire.

"Fiancé," I whisper quietly.

"What?" Apparently he hadn't made out what I had said.

I clear my throat and sit a little straighter, a little bit more confident. "Fiancé," I repeat louder. "You said 'you know your boyfriend is a complete twat'… fiancé. My fiancé is a completely twat."

I open my palm like a flower blooming and extend my hand to him, the diamond ring sitting there between us. James stares at it and then my face: maybe he seems something in it, or my eyes, or just knows, because he peeks down at the ring again and picks up.

He grins that Marauder grin and asks quietly, slowly, "Will you marry me?"

I almost answer back but I stop myself, blinking and then smiling roguishly.

"Sorry, try again," I say, the words echoing like a mantra in my head.

"What the heck does that – oh!"

Sliding off the couch, I realize he's in nothing but boxers – it hadn't registered simply because perhaps I had bigger things on my mind than what state he was in when I came downstairs. Smiling somewhat nervously, he kneels down and takes one of my hands.

"Lily Evans, woman in the bedding, will you marry me?"

I giggle, bite my lower lip and then bob my head up and down rhythmically while shrieking, "Yes!"

The moment the ring adorns my finger, James kisses me, hard and long, cradling me back against the cushions. The sheet slips slightly around me when I abandon it and run both hands across his shoulders, burying them in his messy hair afterwards, to keep him there.

I remember being so afraid to show my Patronus, then being so angry about the wizarding world, and then being so pissed off, feeling so neglected.

But it was worth it, I tell myself. It's so worth it. I find 'sorry, try again' is no longer my life motto.

When James lifts me up into his arms, supporting me bridal-style, I cuddle myself into his chest. This feels so right, so perfect.

"I love you," I whisper to him, well aware that I'm drifting off as he climbs the stairs.

"The feeling is quite mutual, Mrs. Potter."

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