Chapter Text
He’s late.
Unusually so.
Especially because he’s just won the last match of the season, and thereby the Quidditch Cup. But he’s not back in the common room for the party—as is customary— and it has been two hours since she last saw him and she really wants to see him and snog the living daylights off of him.
Lily is sitting by the nearest armchair to the door of the common room, so that she can be the first one to greet him— or like Sirius had put it, ‘jump his bones’— but he isn’t here yet.
She decides then that she will only wait for two more minutes before she goes out herself to see what the hell has taken him so long, because she really didn’t believe it when Sirius had said that James was probably late because he was taking a wank in the locker rooms to the thoughts of Lily. Of course she'd blushed and denied that, calling Sirius crass and suggesting that her James wouldn't waste time on that when he has the real thing right here. To which Sirius had only grinned and said, “your James, huh?”
She flipped him off and left their spot near the fireplace then to take refuge near the door and James is still not here.
She gets up in a force, nearly toppling the huge armchair in the process and pays no heed to the eyes on her, moving towards the door.
She has only taken one step outside and a very familiar someone calls, “Evans, wait.”
She turns, scrunching her brows.
“Have this.” Sirius hands her the piece of parchment she's seen the marauders carry oh so many times but always refused to share what it was. Noting her still skeptical face, he urges, “look at it first.”
And wow. She’d thought that they might’ve passed notes back and forth using this parchment or anything else but not this. What she’s seeing can only be described as a marvel, containing the entire map of Hogwarts which tracks every person in the castle.
After two moments, “Wow.” she can't say or think any other thought because that is all she is capable of at the moment. They truly are brilliant. But of course she’s not going to tell Sirius that. He’d fly away if his ego is given more air. “When did you make this?” She looks up then, finding Sirius with an irritating smirk on his face.
“Now now, I can't tell you everything now, can I? I’ll leave that to Prongs. Now go get your man.” Her protest of ‘he’s not my man!’ dies as he walks— saunters— back inside.
She scans the map for her favourite name, starting with the locker rooms for quidditch. As she suspected, he is not there. Take that Sirius! She marvels at their invention as she drags her fingers across their map. She finds his name on one of the stairs walking up to the common rooms and rushes.
He drags his heavy feet across the last step, landing on a platform before he has to take the last flight of stairs to reach the common room to find Lily.
He swears he can still feel her lips on his cheek. His thoughts were only filled with her screams of his name in the stands and the way she touched his other cheek while she kissed him. He thinks— no, knows— that his brain stopped functioning then. He's only been imagining useless scenarios in his head on what he'd do once he saw her again. Now that he is more than eighty eight percent sure that she might also like him.
He takes a small step across the platform, when he thinks he's seen her atop the stairs. He blinks only once, and suddenly she's right in front of him and he forgets the act of breathing.
“Hi,” he says, waiting for her to reply so that he knows she is not just a figment of his tired brain’s imagination.
A beat skips. He can't read her face. “You're late.”
“Oh. yeah.” He’s not sure if he's breathing still.
“Almost two hours.”
“I didn't realise.”
“Maybe more.”
“Keeping tabs on my whereabouts, Evans?” He plasts a smirk on his face. Knowing she timed his arrival was doing things to his stomach.
She scowls then. As expected. “Forgive me for being worried about you lying in a ditch somewhere.”
His eyes catch the colour of the all too familiar parchment in her hand. But, he chooses to ignore how and where she got that from for now. “You're worried about my safety now, Evans?” He brings a palm to his heart. “Be still my beating heart.” It actually does need to slow down, he realises when he feels the rate at which it is running.
She smiles at that. Bingo! “I'd prefer if it kept on beating, since I'm worried about your safety and what not.” He suppresses his smile then. “Why were you late?”
His mood sours again as he recollects the events that transpired after the quidditch match before the locker rooms. She notices it.
“What happened?” Her brows furrow.
He had told the rest of his team to carry on without waiting for him to finish packing his things, as he did not want them to miss out on the party that was sure to be raging in the Gryffindor tower. Little did he suspect that he’d miss two hours of the party that was being thrown in their honour.
He took longer than expected, cleaning up his broom and setting his quidditch robes away safely before he left the lockers only to find a group of fifth year Slytherins bullying first and second year Hufflepuffs who were only trying to make use of the quidditch pitch now that there were no matches or practices scheduled. The four Slytherins had confiscated those three kids' brooms, forcefully and were threatening them by moving to break the brooms.
Obviously, James had to step in. He swears did what he could without raising his wand, only using it to cast protego on the kids and himself when the Slytherins used their wands to hex them. And that was when McGonagall and Sprout had seen them.
Then, he proceeded to spend the next entire hour and a half going to both their offices and Slughorn’s, explaining what had occurred, causing him to be as late as he was.
And the entire ordeal, combined with the quidditch match successfully managed to kill his legs.
He tells Lily exactly that, watching her eyes soften as he mentions the Hufflepuff first and second years.
“Good,” she says, after he’s finished telling her that the four Slytherin fifth years had received detention for four hours everyday until summer break.
“Indeed.”
They look at the other then, neither moving a single muscle, just looking.
He clears his throat when his eyes start drifting to her lips. “So, uh, how’d you get that.” He motions to her hand, still holding their Map.
“Sirius.”
Well, he didn’t expect that. Though, in hindsight he should have.
“He gave it to me when I was coming to search for you.”
“You were coming to search for me?” He smirks.
“Shut up.”
“Why? Were you scared that something had happened to me?”
“No. I just wanted to see what was taking you so long.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “Is that all?” He takes a step.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She tilts her head up, looking at him as she takes another step forward too. Their toes must be touching now. “There was one more thing.”
He’s forgotten how to breathe again.
Then, the softest words he’s ever heard hits his chest. “Can I kiss you?”
His entire body releases in the breath that takes him to say, “yes, yes, you fucking can.”
And she’s moving before he even finishes his sentence, both his hands coming to rest on her hips, and hers finding their way onto his chest. He’s sure she can feel his very fast heartbeat under her palm even through the sheet of thick parchment and he does not care. All he can concentrate on now is how her touch feels, her lips, her hand that’s slowly snaking toward his neck and oh.
He knows he can live in this moment forever.
All too soon— or so James thinks— they come up for air, staring into the other’s face as they do so.
“I’ve wanted to do that forever.” He speaks first.
“What do you say we make up for lost time, then?” And before he can think of a reply, her lips are on his. And why does he even need a reply anyways? When she is the reply to all his prayers.