Author's Note: It's been awhile since I did a birthday drabble (or any drabble jeez), so I'm dropping this in before midnight (my time). Today was irritating, so it's just a mindless fluff moment. Indulge me my latest snog-and-run. At least no one's drunk. You all know that's my usual go-to.

Happy birthday to Lily Evans, light of my light, heart of my heart.

Seventeen

"The thing is," Lily says—simply, pertly, shockingly soberly—"I reckon I ought to snog you before midnight."

It is late Saturday evening, 29 January 1977. Only the worst of the worst give Saturday night detentions, but Filch is, by definition, a filcher of all good things and basic decency, so James and Lily had been stuck scrubbing metal in the Trophy Room for the last two hours. James can't be certain what foible brought Lily to this debasement, but he's certain a few harmless suits of armour domino-ing down the third floor corridor after James accidentally nudged one diving for his errant snitch cannot possibly be a fair trade.

Someone really ought to convey that to Filch.

"You can't be serious," James had lamented irately when the caretaker had held out the dirty buckets of rags, polish, and lye with a satanic grin. The rows and rows and rows of displays loomed around them. James grabbed Lily's wrist, ignoring her muted oomph as he tugged her forward and wagged her pale, elegant fingers in the tyrant's face. "Do you see these hands? Do these look like hands you ought to deign to make scrub? They are important hands, Mr. Filch! Save-the-world sort of hands! And these"—he lifts his own arm, giving his fingers a dainty wave—"well, thishand helped lead Gryffindor to victory last Saturday, and McGonagall will have your hide if they are so much as nicked. We are talking precious cargo."

"Two coats." Filch smirked, thrusting the buckets forward. "Three on the plaques."

"You are a cruel man." James scowled, grabbing his bucket. He glanced down at his mighty scorned hand, frowning. "Sorry, ol' boy. Looks like you're in for it."

"I wouldn't apologise," Lily whispers as she passed him to grab her own supplies. Her lips twitched. "Gives it the evening free from its usual polishing task, no?"

James choked, scandalised. "Sorry?"

"Quiet!" Filch snapped, and Lily gave James a wink before twirling off to one of the display cases toward the back.

But if James thought the most outlandish moment of his evening would be Lily Evans's offhand quip about his personal polishing habits, he was sorely mistaken. For here they were now, finally escaped from Trophy Hell, ambling innocently back to Gryffindor Tower, and she springs that on him.

He stops. Of course he stops. He fears he's had an aneurysm, or some kind of hallucination. Someone is going to pop out from an alcove at any moment, pointing and laughing, "Look at James Potter's face! So red and dithering! What a laugh!"

Lily stops too, eventually. A few steps ahead, she barely turns enough to glance over her shoulder at him.

"I'm sorry," is all he can think to say. "Something is in my ear or—well, or possibly my brain, because you haven't just—"

"Decided I ought to snog you?" She smiles. "Yes. Or—maybe. I'm considering it."

"Why?" is all he can ask, a second before some slim sliver of sanity returns and he has the intelligence to sputter, "Not that I—well, you know—but all the same—"

"I turn seventeen at midnight," she tells him.

James knows this. He knows this well. In fact, he has a Brewing Cauldrons record stashed beneath his bed that he'd picked up in Hogsmeade a few weeks ago, certain she'd love it, knowing her seventeenth was looming, all the while equally certain he was a soppy, miserable coward and regardless of the strives they've made in their…friendship, maybe?...well, it might just stay beneath his bed. He still had a few more hours left to decide. Or he thought he had. She's rushing the schedule. Rushing a lot of things.

"Are you dying at midnight?" he asks stupidly. "Or—am I dying? Is this a dying wish?"

"Seventeen is adulthood," Lily continues definitively, ignoring that. "And this…whatever this is here? You and me? I'm not certain I want to bring it into adulthood. It all reeks a bit of adolescent melodrama, no?"

"I honestly couldn't say what adolescent melodrama smells like," James replies.

She squawks out a reluctant laugh.

"See that." She jabs a finger at him. "Like that. I like that. But I haven't the faintest why. It's so irritating."

"I'm sorry?" But James is not sorry. Mostly, he's fixated on I like that.

She likes that.

"So I think I just have to snog you," she says again, no less jarring for the repetition. "Just…see what's happening there. That way, if it's as off as I think, I can brush my hands of it, leave it behind in the raucous tides of yesteryear, yeah?"

"And if it's not?" James ventures. "Off, that is?"

She cocks her head to the side, quirks an eyebrow. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

But James doesn't think he's getting ahead of himself. He doesn't think he's even really caught up to her in the first place yet, can't understand this timeline or age distinction or a ticking clock that she's just flipped into countdown mode. He does perhaps understand her vague mentions—"you and me", "whatever this is here"—because, well, yes, maybe it is a tad difficult to handle a bloke who is utterly enamored, but doesn't know how to say it, or show it, and sometimes he thinks he ought to let it go or throw his hands up, but then she'll smile or laugh or say something so clever and true and brilliant, and what's a wizard to do? Sometimes, he thinks she likes it. Really likes it. Other times, he's certain she doesn't. Is that adolescent melodrama? It certainly gives him headaches enough. But what—

She rises on her toes, presses her mouth to his.

Oh Merlin, she's done it. Kissing him. She's kissing him.

She pulls away, laughing. "Are you going to make me do all the work?"

"Warning," James croaks. "You've got to give a bloke warning."

"I said it twice—"

He wraps his arms around her waist, kisses her.

It's all clumsier than he wants it to be, but perhaps that's apt. She's off-balance, startled, but James is almost victorious in her surprise, in the soft sound she makes, of the way her lips part, of the slow but sure snake of her arms around his neck. Better. Much better. And more.

Ha, he thinks. They stumble back. Take that. Ahead of themselves, are they? Hardly.

His hands sweep up her back. Her fingers sift through his hair. He tilts his head, angling for more, strategically pulls back and feels his heart slam in his chest as she follows. They both smell like polish and wax, but she tastes like mint tea. Her lips are quick and her tongue ever-so-teasingly slips against his.

He's imagined kissing Lily Evans a thousand times. A hundred thousand times. This is nothing like any of that, and yet somehow better. Simpler. Simple is good.

She tugs her mouth away, and James moans in complaint.

"Wait," he says. "I can do better."

She snorts.

"March, right?" she asks.

James can't quite process words yet. His arms are still wrapped around her. "Hm?"

Her hold on him loosens. "Your birthday. End of March?"

She could tell him his birthday was Rainbow Spatula Geranium, and he's rather certain he'd agree at present. But something about the prompt rings true. "Sure."

She gives his cheek a light, placating pat before squirming out of his arms completely. "Good. We'll reassess then. I think you're simply too young to make this kind of decision at the moment."

He is "simply too" a lot of things, mostly simply too in love with her, and simply too flustered to call her out on that utterly illogical statement, but that's fine. Just fine.

"All right," he says. "Sounds nice. Whatever you say."

She smiles. "See you later."

He blinks. "See you…?"

But she's already walking away, an extra skip in her step.