Chapter Text
Being friends with James was, all at once, the very best and the very worst.
Lily had been expecting some difficulty of course, she had known that it wasn’t going to be a quick skip and a hop back to being friends like they had been before, but she really hadn’t been expecting it to be this difficult.
Because if loving James from afar had been hard, loving him from up close and not being able to do anything about it was worse.
Before, when he hadn’t known how she felt, it hadn’t been this hard. Whenever he smiled at her too widely, or touched her, or when she made him laugh and he would lean his shoulder against hers, she could tell herself that he wasn’t doing it on purpose, that he didn’t know how she felt and there was hope that things could be different if he did know.
And during, it had been very hard to lose that hope, to watch him realize that she had feelings for him and continue to date someone else. It had been hard to watch their friendship fall apart, and to try and walk around with her feelings weighing her down.
But now, with everything all out in the open, and there being no obstacles in their way, it was a different kind of excruciating all together. And he seemed as though he felt like he needed to make up for the way he’d acted the last couple of months, so he was extra attentive and extra touchy and extra… James.
He was always pulling her chairs out for her and offering to carry her bag and showing up with snacks in the common room while she was working on homework with Mary. He’d throw his arm around her when they were walking together in the corridor and he’d hold doors open for her, and when she shared a puzzled look with Mary that led to her explicitly stating that she wasn’t angry with him any longer, he just laughed and told her that he knew she wasn’t upset with him.
So she couldn’t understand why he was behaving the way he was, like he was her boyfriend, but not.
They were in the library studying for a Charms exam at present, and in a strange twist of events, James was seated on her right.
He never sat on her right when they were studying because he was left handed and she was right handed and when he sat on her right, they were always bumping elbows.
But the boy seemed like he wanted to bump her elbow today, and not only was he on her right, but she was pretty sure that he had scooted his chair closer to hers too. She hadn’t seen him do it, but he seemed closer to her than he normally was.
He had his right hand buried in his hair and his elbow resting on the table as he rewrote his notes. His left elbow tapping against her forearm every few seconds as he moved his quill across the parchment.
Lily was not getting any studying done. She was holding her quill over her own notes, but the ink had since dried, and she was now just staring at James’ arm.
He slid his hand across the parchment and bumped her a bit harder than he’d been. Without looking up at her, he lifted his hand from the table, covered her hand for a moment and then went back to writing his notes. A quick little, ‘sorry I keep bumping you’ even though she was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose.
“James?”
He looked up at her, his glasses falling down his nose a ways at the sudden movement. He dropped his quill to fix them and then gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah? Done studying? I’m almost done, need about five more minutes and then we can head down to lunch.”
Lily looked down at her notes, which again, she hadn’t touched in a good fifteen minutes. “I’m not ready to leave yet,” She started, dragging her eyes away from where a drop of ink had dried in the middle of her parchment. She hadn’t even vanished it away.
“Oh. Do you have a question about the notes?” He narrowed his brow at this, as Lily had the highest marks of their year in Charms. It was by far her favorite class.
“No.” She shook her head, “No, I don’t have a question about the notes.”
He blinked at her. “But you do have a question?”
She bit the tip of her tongue and then nodded. “Why are you sitting there? Er, I mean, why are you sitting on my right? You always sit on my left when we study together.”
James ran his hand through his hair and sat up all the way, leaning against the back of his chair. “Yeah, I forgot how often we clash elbows when I sit on your right but…” He trailed off and Lily swore that his ears got darker. He rubbed his hand across his jaw and then grinned at her, “Do you want me to move to your other side?”
Lily looked him over. “No.”
“You sure?” She nodded. He smiled again and then picked up his quill and looked back at his notes.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She turned in her chair, so she was facing him fully now, resting her arm on the seatback.
“What?” He was still looking at his paper. “I don’t know, I just sat here. I wasn’t really thinking about it.”
“You’re always thinking about it though. In every instance before this one, you’ve sat on my left so that we don’t bump arms and elbows. But today, you chose to sit on my right. You’re seated at an entirely new part of the table, you always sit in this corner,” She turned around to point to at the empty seat behind her. “Or this corner,” She pointed at the seat across from him. “Specifically so that you’re not bumping elbows with someone.”
James tapped the feather side of his quill against the table and then looked at her. “I’m not sure I want to tell you. Can’t I just promise not to bump you anymore?”
Lily raised her brows and leaned forward, only slightly, because they were already close. There was hardly room for her feet between their chairs. “What,” She paused, letting her head fall forward, “is that supposed to mean?”
James dropped his quill and sighed as he leaned back. “I can’t see you when I sit on your left.”
Lily’s heart started pounding as she tried to work through what the hell that could mean. “You can’t see me?” It didn’t make sense. None of this new James made sense. He never said what she thought he would say or did what she thought he might do, he was always brazen and acting relieved. But now he looked shy, but resigned, and he might be blushing? Over what? What was he trying to tell her?
“No.” He leaned forward, resting his right elbow on the table, like he did when he was studying, “Because I sit like this, and you do to, and then our backs are together. If I sit over here though, then we’re both leaning over the table so that we’re facing each other.”
Lily blinked at him.
“Oh.”
“Is that alright?”
Lily didn’t know exactly what he meant by that question, but she nodded. She said nothing else after that, so James picked up his quill and went back to copying his notes. She must have stayed quiet and unmoving for a little too long because he looked back over at her.
“What’s on your mind?”
She looked him in the eye and shrugged. “I’m not sure, but you’re acting strangely, and I don’t know what it means.” She slowly spun back toward the table, scooting up to the edge of her chair.
“I’m acting strangely?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, twirling her quill around on the table.
“I don’t think I’m acting strangely.”
“Well I’m gonna go ahead and disagree with you there, Potter.”
He laughed, breathy and quiet, “Alright. What am I doing that’s strange?”
Lily huffed and crossed her arms. “Everything!”
“Everything? That doesn’t really help me.”
“Well,” She clicked her tongue and tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know! I thought you were trying to be extra nice to me at first because you thought I was mad at you, but then when I suggested that you laughed at me and said that you knew I wasn’t mad at you anymore. So now I’m just not sure why you’re acting the way you are.”
“You think it’s strange that I’m being nice to you?” James raised his brows, his smile dipping a bit.
“No, I think it’s strange that you’re being extra nice to me.” Lily tried to clarify, not sure if she was helping him or not. “You’re always touching me and looking at me, and you didn’t do that before.”
James tapped his fingertips on the table and then leaned forward, putting a hand on the back of her chair. He just looked at her for a moment, his brows furrowed, and his gaze locked with hers. “Why haven’t you asked me what happened between me and Annabel?”
Lily felt a bit thrown by that question, and by the fact that his arm was caging her in. She bit down on her tongue and shook her head. “It’s none of my business.”
“What if I tell you that it is?”
The hair on the back of Lily’s neck stood up and she remembered that look again, the one he’d given her in the pub.
“You said that you wanted to be friends.” He said when she didn’t respond. “The other week, when we did rounds, you asked if we could be friends again. And I’m really glad that we’re friends again, I really like being your friend, but if you think that I’m being extra nice to you lately, it’s probably because,” He took a deep breath and waited until she looked him in the eye before he continued, “I want to be more than friends, Lily. I fancy you.”
It had been almost two weeks since they’d had their little talk on rounds, when he’d stood in front of the sunflower portrait and made her heart skip with his boyish grin and apologies. And it should have shocked her to hear him admit to having feelings for her now, but it didn’t.
“I said that I wanted to be friends because I wanted you to stop ignoring me, James!” Lily made sure not to shout, even though she really wanted to shout at him. Setting the record straight seemed to be the most important thing at the moment. “Because you had been acting like you didn’t like me and I wanted-“
“I didn’t know how to act around you,” James interrupted.
“Which you’ve said, but still! If you fancy me, why didn’t you say anything before?” Her mind was reeling, moving too quickly as she retroactively put all the pieces where they needed to be for everything to finally make sense.
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear it before,” He still had his hand on the back of her chair and his grip must have tightened because his muscles shifted all the way up his arm.
Lily let out a humorless laugh.
“You went out with Prewett! I thought you moved on, and I had given you every reason to, so I didn’t think it was a good time to-“
“Moved on?”
“Ms. Evans,” Madam Pince tapped her wand against her desk and looked across the library at them. Lily’s cheeks burned at being reprimanded, but also at the thought that the students around them could hear what they were saying.
“Sorry, Madam,” Lily said, ducking her head.
James moved his hand from the chair to her shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Lily felt like a top that someone had just spun across the floor. Out of control and kind of dizzy, but she closed her textbook, and shoved everything into her bag, which James took from her before she could get it on her shoulder. She stood up and pushed her hair back over her shoulders.
He was holding his hand out toward her when she looked up at him. Everything about him seemed steady and grounded and sure, the rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes stayed glued to hers. And he held his hand out to her, waiting for her to take it.
“Moved on,” She scoffed, unable to keep from smiling as she reached out and slid her hand into his. The world stopped spinning and for the first time in months, her heart didn’t feel at all heavy. Instead, it felt like she’d just stepped off a ledge, like she was freefalling. She was absolutely giddy. “You waited to tell me that you fancied me until you thought that I’d moved on?”
“You did the same thing!” He squeezed her hand and they started across the library.
“I did not!” She whisper shouted as he pushed the door open for them. Once it was closed and they were safely in the corridor, she repeated herself a bit louder, “I did not! You overheard Marlene, that’s not nearly the same thing as me telling you.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should have told me when you first worked it out.”
“Maybe you should have told me,” Lily shot back. She stopped walking, tugging on his hand to stop him next to her. “And you finding out when you did, it wasn’t enough to change anything at the time.” Her heart was beating in her ears.
James took in a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone or do the wrong thing and I let everything fall apart instead of making the decision that I wanted to make.” He tilted his head to the side, “I’d also spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I was over you. I was not.”
“What decision did you want to make?” She asked, reaching over and wrapping her free hand over the back of his, so his hand was encased in both of hers.
“Are you kidding?” He raised his brows and stepped closer to her, her already racing heart jumped around in her chest. The poor thing had really been through it recently. “You were going on about how it was just a stupid crush and how you were going to get over it, all while looking like you were about to start crying and telling me that I was supposed to be laughing at your jokes.” Lily pressed her lips together as she remembered the look of dread that had been on his face. “I wanted to tell you the truth, that I wasn’t really over you, that of course I still fancied you. I almost did, but you kept interrupting me to tell me that it wasn’t a big deal.”
“I lied.” Lily nodded.
“Yeah, well, I lied too.” James brushed his thumb over her knuckles.
“Maybe we should stop doing that,”
“You think?” James grinned.
“Yeah, maybe we should give being on the same page a go.”
“Alright. Lily, I fancy you.” Lily smiled up at him and bounced slightly on her heels, she couldn’t stop herself. He laughed, reaching up and brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek.
“James, I fancy you too. In a very big deal sort of way. In a ‘I’m not going to get over you’ kind of way.”
“Yeah?” His eyes looked like they might be twinkling. “I think I might be familiar with that feeling.”
“Yeah?” Her chest was going to explode, she was sure of it.
“Yeah,” He nodded. “We should probably go out or something.”
Lily brought her hand up and slid it around the back of his neck, pulling him down to her, “Or something,” She agreed, pressing his lips to hers.