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“He’s staring again,” Mary Macdonald said from behind her mirrored aviators.
Lily Evans was reclining in a beach chair, eyes shut against the glare of the late evening sun. Her skin was warm, but her meticulous sun cream regimen has kept her from burning, and the steady (yet responsible) consumption of alcohol throughout the afternoon has kept her from feeling irritable in the heat. Lily took a drink of the excessively sweet concoction that Marlene had mixed up (“Don’t ask me what’s in it, just make sure you’re drinking water, too,” she’d said) before turning to look down the beach. The beach was currently overrun with University of Hogwarts students enjoying their annual Welcome Week Beach Party, with a bar set up in the middle (the bar itself being a handful of coolers and a giant tub of Marlene’s infamous Tropical Jungle Juice). Groups of students dotted the beach, gathered around beach towels or under beach umbrellas, swimming or paddle-boarding in the water, and dancing or chatting by the bar. There was even a highly competitive volleyball tournament happening which, as far as Lily could tell, had very different rules than the competitive circuit.
The group Lily was looking for was huddled near the volleyball net, cheering wildly as Benjy Fenwick — a fifth-year senior finishing up a double major in engineering and mathematics — did a cartwheel kick-spike maneuver that was declared legal by the referee. She knew half of the group fairly well; Remus Lupin, her friend and study partner for the past year, was sitting and chatting with Peter Pettigrew, who was a friend of Remus’ and would sometimes join them in the library. Lily didn’t know the third member of their group at all, a man with shoulder-length black hair who appeared to be a big fan of Marlene’s bartending skills based on how often she’s seen him walk over here. The fourth man had messy black hair, glasses, and was sitting beside a comically large and overstuffed beach bag. Lily knew him by name only, and based on how quickly his head snapped back to the game when Lily turned her attention to him, she guessed that Mary was right about his staring.
“You don’t know it’s me he’s staring at,” Lily said, tearing her eyes off of his back — and god, why does that man ever wear a shirt? — and looking back at Mary.
“Lily, he stared at you at every single party you were both at last year. He’s into you.”
Lily could only hope that Mary was right. While she wasn’t sure that he’d been staring at her, she had definitely been staring at him. At the first party she saw him at she’d unsuccessfully tried to drum up the courage to go over and say something to him. At the second party she asked Remus what his name was after she saw the two of them talking. And after the third he began to star in some very inappropriate daydreams of hers, which only made the prospect of actually talking to him seem all the more difficult. She’d kept an eye out for him whenever she was on campus, but their paths never crossed.
“He’s undressing you with his eyes as we speak,” Mary continued.
Lily snorted, hoping Mary would write her blush off as sun exposure. “You seem very invested in this.”
“It’s better than reality TV,” she said with a grin before gasping dramatically. “Oh my god, Lily, I just had the best idea.”
Lily eyed Mary warily. Mary had a look on her face that she only ever had when she had an idea that she thought was brilliant, but would inevitably end with Lily stranded three towns over without her wallet or stuck overnight in the dressing rooms at a clothing boutique, just to name a few examples. “Idea?” Lily asked.
“For seducing him,” Mary clarified, as if she expected Lily to be on the same page.
Lily choked on her drink. “Seducing —”
“Here,” she said, thrusting a tube of sun cream into Lily’s hands.
“I’m already wearing sun cream,” Lily said.
“You’re going to reapply it,” she said with a grin. “Very slowly.”
“Mary, no —”
“He’ll lose his mind, I know it.”
Lily bit her lip. “I don’t think —”
“I hate to play this card,” Mary said, grinning in a way that made it very obvious that she was lying. “But you owe me.”
Lily sighed, regretting ever agreeing to a third glass of wine while wearing Mary’s very fancy white cocktail dress. “I offered to pay the dry cleaning fee.”
“I know, but this means more to me than money ever could.”
“Fine,” she sighed, resigning herself to playing her part in Mary’s machinations. It’s not that Lily was a shy person, it’s just that she’d rather not make a fool of herself on a public beach surrounded by her peers. She’d never sensually applied sun cream before (has anybody? she thought) and wasn’t convinced that it would be the seduction Mary seemed to think it would be.
Lily started on her legs, beginning at her ankle then slowly working her way up, rubbing sweeping circles into her pale skin. She snuck a peek through her hair and saw that James’ eyes were on her — on her legs more specifically. She reached back down to her ankles, this time rubbing long strokes up to mid-thigh, lifting her leg off her lounge chair as she did. Another peek told her that James’ eyes were still glued to her. Next she did her arms, encircling her wrists with her fingers before working the cream into her forearms, then her elbows, then her biceps, making her way up to her shoulders. She made sure to flip her hair back and out of the way as she worked on her shoulders, then used one hand to hold it up against her scalp in a twist while she coated the back of her neck. Then she rose to her knees and began on her stomach, starting at the skin just underneath her top and working her way down before slipping two fingers just inside the waistband on her bikini bottoms and swiping her hand slowly across the last strip of her stomach.
“Lily, I swear to god his jaw just dropped,” Mary whispered from beside her.
Feeling encouraged, Lily sat back on her chair and flipped her hair back again, bringing her hands back to her shoulders but this time moving her fingers underneath the halter straps to rub at her collarbones. Making sure that James was still looking, Lily pushed out her chest and positioned the tube over her cleavage. She squeezed, and she heard a small ‘pop!’ before she felt the entire contents of the tube dump onto her skin. Lily gasped at the cold temperature of the cream, but quickly warmed back up thanks to what she was sure was a very violent blush of embarrassment. Mary was laughing beside her, gasping for air in a way that Lily felt was completely unwarranted for how mortifying and not at all funny this situation was.
“Mary Macdonald, if you don’t stop laughing I am going to strangle you with my sun cream-coated hands.”
Mary cackled louder. Lily sighed, closing her eyes and praying for a sinkhole to open up beneath her. Or a large wave to sweep her out to sea. Really, anything would be preferable to —
“You know, I’ve heard redheads burn easily but this seems excessive, Evans.”
Lily’s head snapped up to find James Potter standing over her with a massive grin on his face, holding a towel in one hand. He brain sputtered for a moment as she realized that he’s never stood this close or been this shirtless near her before. When her brain did start up again, it did a pretty good job of setting her humiliation aside, in Lily’s opinion.
“You know my name?” she asked.
“Remus told me,” he said, crouching down to her level as he handed her the towel in his hand.
“He told you?” she asked, taking the towel from him. “Just out of the blue, ‘Hey, I have a friend named Lily Evans, you should watch her embarrass herself on a beach sometime’?”
“Of course,” he grinned — and dear god, that grin. “What would the alternative be, I saw you at a party and bugged him to tell me everything he knew about you?”
Lily felt a flutter in her stomach as she laughed. “Of course not, who would do that?” The way James chuckled at that made her think that Remus might have tipped him off about Lily’s own invasive questioning, but seeing as he all but confessed to the doing the same Lily couldn’t be bothered to feel ashamed. She held the towel out toward James. “I can’t get your towel all messy, you’ll need it.”
“I always bring extras.”
“Ah, is that what that huge bag is for?” she asked, nodding back to the spot near his friends that he’d abandoned.
James shrugged. “I overpack, I’m working on it.”
Lily wiped at the sun cream on her chest but only succeed in pushing it around. She sighed. “I think I’m going to have to go in the water and wash off,” she said, standing up.
“Good thinking,” James said, falling into step beside her.
“I think I can rinse myself off without supervision,” she said as they left Mary behind and made their way toward the water.
“I’m not supervising you, I’m supervising my towel.” Lily rolled her eyes at the flimsy excuse. “Besides, I think you wanted my attention.”
“Oh I did, did I?”
“Do you normally make such a show of applying sun cream?”
Lily turned her head forward, hoping James wouldn’t notice the red creeping up her neck. “Who said that was for you?” she muttered.
“I think the blush on your cheeks just did.”
Damn.
“You’re awfully cocky for someone who’s spent the past hour leching after me.”
“Leching?” James exclaimed with a laugh. “I was respectfully admiring, tastefully ogling at the most.”
Lily laughed loudly. “Just what every girl dreams of, a tasteful ogle of their very own.”
James chuckled. “In my defense, you weren’t supposed to notice.”
“Then you should probably work on your subtlety.”
“Nah, no point now. You already know.”
“Well, for when you ogle other girls, then.”
“I resent the implication that I walk about campus, ogling this way and that,” James said as they reached the water and began to wade in. “I am a one woman ogler, Evans.”
The water was up to Lily’s belly button when she began to wet the towel and wipe at the mess on her chest. “And you’ve decided to devote that attention to me, have you?”
“Who wouldn’t want to watch a woman get a little sexy with sun cream?” Lily stopped wiping at herself and shot James a dubious look. A glob of sun cream chose that moment to slide off of her and landed in the water with a small ‘plop!’. James laughed so hard he doubled over. Lily tried to ignore the blossom of embarrassment in her stomach and turned her attention to her bikini top; it was still slick with sun cream and no amount of towel patting was changing that. Lily sighed, but cut herself off halfway through. She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol thrumming through her, the warmth of the sun on her skin, or simply the inescapable essence of summer that clouded her thoughts and emboldened her actions, but Lily suddenly had a wickedly wonderful idea — to both clean her top and wipe the grin right off of James’ face. Lily bent her knees, lowering herself until the water lapped at her collarbone, and turned away from James. She gathered her hair over one shoulder and said, “Untie these for me?”
James stopped laughing abruptly. “…what?”
Lily looked over her shoulder at James and saw him staring at her, eyes wide and jaw slack. Oh, she thought, I’ve definitely regained the control, here. “I need to take it off to wash it,” she said with a coquettish smile. James stared for a moment more, then nodded softly and reached toward her. Lily faced away from him, holding her top to her chest, as she felt him start to tug at the fabric at her nape. His fingers brushed against her skin as he worked, sending little jolts of excitement down her spine. Lily closed her eyes at the sensations, grateful that he wasn’t facing her to see how affected she was by the simple contact. The straps around her neck fell away as he reached underwater to work at the strap at her back. Once he was finished, Lily slowly pulled the top away as she shot James one more look and said, “Thanks.” James was silent behind her.
She began to work at the top underwater, wiping off the the sun cream that coated it before rubbing the cups together to try and work out what the fabric had soaked up, then wrung the top out a few times until the water ran clear. Then she brought the top back to her chest, holding it in place with one arm while using the other to hold her hair out of the way again. Without needing to say anything, James took a step toward her, reaching in front of her to grab the straps where they began at the top of the cups, his fingers trailing across her skin, over her shoulders as he brought them to the back of her neck. After he did the same for the other straps, Lily adjusted the cups, then stood and turned to face James.
“What do you think, will it hold?”
James hesitated, then brought a finger to the thin strap of fabric between the cups and gave a slow tug down. The straps held. “Seems solid,” he said.
Lily hummed in response, but couldn’t think of anything else to say because his finger was still on her top and his eyes were searching hers in a way that made Lily’s breath catch in her throat. Then James was tugging again, this time pulling her body against his, finally — finally — bringing their lips together. Lily grabbed ahold of James’ biceps as she tilted her head, deepening the kiss greedily and distantly wondering if she was coming off too eager. But then the hand that James had used to bring Lily closer — which was currently trapped between their bodies — slid around to her back, brushing against the underside of her breast as it did, and Lily found she didn’t quite care how she came off as long as he didn’t take his hands off her just yet.
She slid her arms around his neck, bringing one hand up to drag through his hair the way she had so often in her daydreams, and felt him hum against her lips as she did. She took the opportunity to pull away just enough to tease — running her tongue along his bottom lip, taking it between her teeth — but James quickly regained control by bringing one hand to the back of her neck and tilting her head to begin kissing along her jawline, nipping at her ear before moving down her throat. Lily dissolved into a series of gasps and breathy moans as she melted into his touch.
His hands wandered down her sides to grab at her hips, and he slipped two fingers through the thin band at the sides of her bikini bottom — not unlike how she did when she spread sun cream over her lower stomach, she thought, getting a small thrill out of the idea of him wanting to replicate what he’d watched her do — and rubbed circles into the skin there. He deepened the kiss as he pulled her hips into him, and she gasped at the contact. She could feel James smiling against her lips as his hands trailed up her sides, down her back, and to the backs of her thighs where he — effortlessly, thanks to the water — lifted her against him. She wrapped her legs around his hips and brought a hand to the back of his head, taking charge of the kiss from her new vantage point. James didn’t fight her for control this time, but that may have had something to do with the fact that Lily was far beyond teasing by now. In fact, within a few moments Lily noticed that she was rocking her hips against James.
Reluctantly, she pulled away, tilting her head back as she fought to even out her breathing. James leaned his head against her shoulder.
“And that,” Lily said, gasping, “is as far as I will go on a public beach.”
“Love a woman with boundaries,” James replied, kissing along her collarbone. “Especially when I’m on the right side of them.”
“Haven’t decided which side you’re on yet.”
“That,” he said, huffing a laugh against her skin, “is a bald-faced lie, Lily Evans.”
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“I am very good at reading people,” he said while continuing to kiss her neck.
“Are you? And what are you getting from me?” she asked, moving her head to the side to allow James to continue his work on her throat.
“I’m getting…that you really want to give me your number.”
Lily chuckled and tapped on James’ back, which James interpreted correctly and lowered her back to her own feet. “I don’t give my number to strange men. We only just met.”
“Don’t you want to see me again?” James asked, pressing his forehead against hers with an exaggerated pout. Lily laughed and shoved him away lightly.
“I probably will, at some party or another,” Lily said, slowly wading back to the shore.
“We’ve already done that.” The sound of splashing told Lily that James was following behind her.
“Done what?”
“Staring across a crowded room, fate pulling us closer and closer together, et cetera et cetera.”
Lily stopped just before she reached the shore and turned to face James, shooting him a dubious look. “Fate?”
“Definitely,” he grinned.
“Well then, maybe fate will give you my number,” Lily said with a smirk, before turning around and stepping out of the water and onto the beach. She nodded at Remus as she passed him, and he nodded back before looking at a spot over her shoulder — where James still stood, she assumed — and chuckling. Lily continued until she found Mary settling back into her beach chair with a drink in each hand.
“All clean?” she asked with a knowing grin, extending one of the cups to Lily.
“Yes, thank you,” Lily said, taking the drink and sitting back down in her chair.
Mary was watching Lily over the brim of her cup, a gleam in her eyes. “So, how’d it go?”
“We talked.”
“And?”
“And…I said I’d keep an eye out for him at the next party.”
Mary blinked. “That’s it?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Lily asked, suddenly feeling insecure about her decision to play it coy.
Mary rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing you have me.”
“What do you —”
But before she could finish asking, Lily heard her phone buzz from inside her bag. She pulled it out to find a text from an unknown number.
Unknown (20:14): so it turns out fate is named mary macdonald
Lily looked up at Mary and found her grinning.
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I put your contact info into James’ phone while you two were getting busy in the water,” Mary said, and Lily blushed at the realization the Mary had been watching. “His passcode is 1 2 3 4, the adorable idiot.”
Lily looked back at her phone and grinned.