He is poking her doorbell on the first day of summer with the distinct interest of a pureblood who's never taken Muggle Studies—or, at least, never paid much attention while enrolled—and she is sighing because she knew this would happen. She goes to the porch anyway, though, since her mother is yelling about solicitors and she knows Tuney would treat him horribly and, for that one fleeting second before she gets up from the table, she thinks—hopes—it might be Sev, even though she knows he would have thrown pebbles at her window instead.

She is groaning but he is grinning when she answers the door; he's got one hand on his Nimbus and the other in his hair. "I wish you'd stop doing that," she sighs in lieu of a greeting—but she doesn't close the door, with or without him inside.

Dumbfounded, he blinks at her before he answers, finally, "Doing what?"

"That," she says simply, gesturing wildly at him with her mouth in a thin line—because she doesn't know how to articulate that he looks so classic James today, all Quidditch and confidence and windswept hair, and it makes her sick but it mostly makes her lonely.

He knows her well enough not to question an idiosyncrasy, though, and just leans against his broomstick and doesn't allow his smile to falter. "Are you going to let me in or what?" invites James Potter, because it's more of an offer than a request when he says it.

So Lily Evans accepts with resignation: "Do you like omelets? We're having breakfast."

Pushing the screen door open himself, he rests the broom against her mother's favorite armoire and vows to her, "I love omelets."

Her father loves him, but her mother hates him. Lily herself isn't sure which of these she's happy about, so she just drinks her orange juice and tries not to laugh at Tuney's reactions to his markedly wizarding comments, and tries not to remember that summer is greasy hair and oily skin all hidden from the world in her backyard.

For the first few days, she never knows what to say—maybe because she thought she hated him, or maybe because she wasn't prepared for his incessancy, but mostly because she told him he makes her sick and then he started poking at her doorbell every day. Whichever way, he is back every morning at nine o'clock, and as long as he doesn't try to go outside, she supposes she's along for the ride.

It's okay, though, because James has enough words for the both of them, at least at first. He asks about her interests and her family and her future, and he lets her start the real conversation when she tells him she wants to fight.

All anyone really wants to do, he tells her, is to fight.

"My mum was a Black before she married Dad," he confides on the fourth day of summer, sprawled on his stomach across her twin bed with his face by her hands (but she doesn't mind, because lately she doesn't mind much). "Sirius's mum is my first cousin, actually… She wasn't one of the bad ones, though—Mum, not Walburga, I mean—she was a Ravenclaw, anyway. But she always had this mentality about blood purity, and she and Dad used to have fights about it, you know? When I was little. I remember sneaking into the kitchen to get a Chocolate Frog when I should've been in bed, and they'd be arguing—Mum wanted to have me betrothed to Dorcas Meadowes—you know Dorcas, she'll be a seventh year. Because she always thought it's all right to befriend Muggle-borns, just not to marry them."

Lily double-checks, "Your dad won out, though, right?" because he's never had a girlfriend, but he says that's because he's only ever wanted her; and she hopes that, when he doesn't mention the nervous wobble to her voice, it's because he didn't notice it.

"Well, he liked Dorcas, but not enough to force her on me. Not that Mum ended up minding in the end," he adds, scowling.

She quirks an eyebrow. "What happened?"

"Voldemort got both her parents after they became outspoken critics of the war—Mrs. Meadowes was a journalist for the Daily Prophet." James says it like he doesn't mean it, but Lily sees his eyes glowing with fiery anger. "So now Mum wants me to go into the Ministry, but I don't want to work somewhere I can't do anything real."

Lily—whose parents still half expect her to become a Muggle schoolteacher like she wanted to when she was young—understands completely, and tells him so. She won't admit, however, that she's glad he's not engaged to Dorcas Meadowes.

Not yet.

He looks a little baffled when she asks on the eighth day of summer why he hasn't tried to bring mates over. "You mean Padfoot?" he says, his hand back in his hair—his hand always in his hair.

"And Pettigrew and Lupin. What is it you're calling each other these days? Marauders?" Lily prompts, and when he doesn't move a muscle from his perch on her bed, she reaches over and pulls his hand down herself.

James doesn't comment but won't let go. "I don't need mates. This is more than enough," he says, and maybe she doesn't believe it but mostly she does. Whichever way, she doesn't bring it up again, just keeps holding his hand.

They talk a lot about the war—maybe because his parents won't, or maybe because her parents can't, but mostly because it's somehow less personal than making the small talk he presses her for. He doesn't realize that she doesn't have a personal life, just Potions and Charms and her hopes to make Head Girl: Sev was her personal life, and that's gone now, isn't it?

And none of it really occurs to her until James kisses her mouth on the thirteenth day of summer and she doesn't kiss back and she doesn't pull away. It is June—it has always been her escape from getting As in Transfiguration and losing prefect in favor of Alice Abbott and knowing that people talk after she leaves a room. Summer has always been omelets and orange juice and hiding from the world in her backyard, but James doesn't like orange juice and comes up to her bedroom every morning at nine o'clock instead, and Lily isn't sure that she minds.

Whichever way, James doesn't try to kiss her again, and she is glad. "Thank you," she says, because he lets go and doesn't ask for more, and he knows her well enough not to question an idiosyncrasy he doesn't understand.

Instead, he asks her what's on her mind. "Dorcas Meadowes," she says, honest with him for once, and then goes on to deliver him a much-needed explanation of how doorbells work.

On the seventeenth day of summer, they have a picnic on Lily's front lawn—mostly because she doesn't care that this comes close to hiding from the world in her backyard.

Because summer is all Quidditch and confidence and windswept hair…

A/N: Written for The Reviews Lounge's summer collaboration and beta-read by the lovely Kitty East. If you want more Lily/James, just head over to either of our profiles, or take a look at my work-in-progress Through A Glass Darkly. Reviews appreciated!