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Intentions


James didn’t like pickles. “Take it away,” he begged, holding out the lower half of his hamburger, the top bun in his other hand. He waved the thing at Lily, making a face at the green circle lying in the midst of the cheese and onions. “I hate the bloody things.”

“They don’t bite,” Lily laughed, “Bloody hell, you’re acting like it’s going to jump off the burger and attack you or something.”

James whimpered.

“Alright,” she reached out and pinched it off the burger and stuck it in her mouth, chewing it loudly, “Mmm. There, I’ve defeated the evil pickle, are you quite satisfied?”

James nodded and pulled the rest of his burger back to himself and returned the bun to the top. “I will forever be in debt to your chivalrous nature, Evans,” he said and he bit into the burger quickly. “Uhdiffnt wuhhwusse huh hunnahheee haii washh tuh huh washh hurhh,” he said his mouth full.

Lily laughed. “What?”

James swallowed, a big gulp, “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I was here.” He grabbed some a napkin out of the dispenser thing, and looked fascinated with the next one showed up behind. He handed her the first one then grabbed at the next and the next and the next, then popped it with his fingers, pushing it in and out. “How’s this thing work then? Like it’s apparating napkins?”

“It’s a spring. Pull enough and it’ll run out. Some poor underpaid man will come over and refill it at some point, or else it’ll just sit there all empty and napkinless for ages.”

James looked at her.

“Oh go on and pull them all out, you know you want to.”

So he did, one at a time, and soon he had a pile of close to a hundred napkins and an empty dispenser and he grinned, “Muggles. Odd bunch, aren’t they?”

Lily rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. It felt very strange to smile and to laugh - she hadn’t done a lot of it since McGonagall had told her about her Dad. She’d read in the paper about the other students and their parents and her heart had broken for them all - especially for Oliver Kent, whose mum and dad were both killed according to the obituaries in the Prophet. She’d had precious little to smile and laugh about…

But then there had come James Potter and his crooked tooth and his mischievous chuckle as he tried to tuck the extra napkins back into the dispenser, his eyes sparkling as though he’d discovered some unspeakable form of magic. She ripped her hamburger in half and studied it a moment before taking another bite. He was eating at the same time as messing with the dispenser, one hand holding his burger to his mouth as he chewed, the other prodding at the mechanism…

“Thanks for coming to see me,” she said.

James looked over, stopping messing with the dispenser. He left the rest of the napkins sitting in front of it and put his burger down, wiping his fingers over his sweater vest (despite having just messed with the napkins for eons of time, he managed to forget that he had any).

“I’m sorry you’re missing the Yule Ball,” she added.

“That cruddy thing?” James waved his palm. “It wasn’t the ball I said yes to, Evans. It was going with you that I said yes to. I told you I’d go to the ends of the earth with you. Cokeworth isn’t quite the end but I reckon it’s close.”

“It’s not the end, but you can see it from here,” Lily smiled.

James smiled back.

“Still. It’s a little sad, isn’t it?” she asked, “No dancing, no music… no pretty trees.”

He looked around the room and his eyes landed on a jukebox in the corner, and he looked back at her with a smile playing on his lips. “Is it the Yule Ball you want, Lily Evans?”

Lily looked up at him.

“Yeah? Then it’s the Yule Ball you’ll have… hang on - let me see here ---”

James slipped his hand behind him to draw his wand discreetly, then he turned to the stack of napkins on the table. “Arborulus,” he said and a spout of magic came off his wand, encircling the napkins and they spun and he pushed them off onto the floor only just in time as they popped into a great big evergreen tree - right there in the restaurant, among loads of empty plastic tables and chairs, and he waved his wand, moving the tree a bit to the side and as it moved he magicked bulbs and lights and garland and tinsel all over it. He glanced up at the counter to be sure the bored cashier girl wasn’t watching (she wasn’t, she was flicking through a magazine, standing in front of a hot case filled with apple pies in tiny cardboard boxes, warming her palms over the heating lighbulb) and he waved his wand at the jukebox and it lit up, clicking to life, and the records switched out and he stood up and, sliding his wand into his trousers again, he held out his hand to her. “Will you dance with me, Evans?” he asked.

The record dropped onto the player and quiet Christmas notes started playing around the little diner and Lily flushed. They were alone - the cashier girl had gone off to the back of the kitchens, it seemed, for she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and James stared down at her with his wide eyes as Karen Carpenter’s voice filled the room.

“Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through…
But I still have one wish to make…
A special one… for you…”


Lily felt silly, and her cheeks flushed. “C’mon, Evans,” James said, “Don’t leave a boy hanging.”

She slid out of the booth and she took his hand, shaking just a bit, and he pulled her closer, one hand on her hip, the other very respectfully on her shoulder… and he rocked her gently to the music as he stared down at her, a smile playing on his lips.

“Merry Christmas, darling…
We’re apart, that’s true
But I can dream and in my dreams
I’m Christmassing with you…”


James swept her gently around and she laughed as her hair fell the rest of the way out of the clip that had been holding it with the velocity of it and she put her arms around his neck and stared up at him with her pretty green eyes. James felt like he’d stepped into a dream, or some cheesy movie, but if he had he didn’t want to find out.

He just wanted to stay there with Lily Evans.

“Holidays are joyful
There’s always something new
But everyday’s a holiday
When I’m near to you…”

He was singing the lyrics, ever so softly… ridiculously off key and not even in time with the music, really, because he was almost echoing the song rather than singing along - and he missed a couple of the lyrics, but she liked it just the same. She kept her hands on the back of his neck, her fingers dangerously close to feeling that beautiful mop of black hair…

The lights he’d magicked on the tree reflected in his glasses, in his pupils…

“The lights on my tree…
I wish you could see…
I wish it everyday
The logs on the fire
Fill me with desire
To see you and to say
That I wish you Merry Christmas
And Happy New Year too…”


The song was nearly over and Lily wasn’t ready for it to be. She willed Karen Carpenter to sing forever in endless rounds and for James Potter’s arms to stay strung about her as they were right this very moment… he held her hand and dipped her backwards gently, his hand sliding up her spine, bracing her, protecting her from falling… and then lifting her back up… and her heart swelled with the metaphor of it…

“I’ve just one wish
Oh this Christmsas Eve
I wish I were with you…
I wish I were with you…
Merry Christmas… darling…”


And just like that, the music faded away… and James stood her upright gently, and his arms started to slip away from her and she felt him backing up… and she didn’t want that. “Wait,” she whispered thickly. “Don’t go yet.”

James stood still, his hands both resting on the sides of her waist, her hands still up on his neck…

She stared up at him and their breath both seemed to be coming heavier…

“So you got to go to a Yule Ball after all, Evans,” he said lowly, his voice deep in his throat.

Lily nodded, “There’s one thing you forgot.”

“What’s that?”

Lily reached into her pocket for her wand and with a swish… “Mistletoe.”

James looked up at the little sprig that had suddenly appeared on the ceiling over them, then he looked back to her… and she was leaning closer… and her lips were all shiny and moist and lovely and her eyes closed… and James wanted so bloody much to kiss her…

But he hesitated.

“Potter?” Lily whispered, as she paused to peer up at him.

James let his hands drp from her waist and took up her hands in his.

“Potter.” Lily gave him a funny look.

His lips curved funnily as he looked her over. “You haven’t the faintest clue how hard it is for me to say this right now -- but…. I can’t kiss you, Evans.”

“What?” Lily blinked in surprise. “Why?”

James stared into her eyes a moment, brown searching green.

Lily stared at him.

“Evans, I just -- I want you to know my intentions when it comes to you. They’re not just for a kiss in a burger shop because I went and woo’d you with a bit of magic and a pretty song… or because I was the only one who saw you at a time when you were feeling alone in a hard time. My intentions aren’t just to be the one you go to for a good time and a snog.”

“What are your intentions, Potter?”

“My intention is that when I have my first kiss with you… that… that it’ll be the last first kiss.””

Lily’s hands slid out of his and he watched them go.

James closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

Idiot, he thought, You were so bloody close.

James turned to Lily, “C’mon, Evans, I’ll walk you home.”

Lily hesitated, then followed him, her head spinning over what he’d said - last first kisses and the like, all blended up with Karen Carpenter’s voice still echoing in her mind.

Everyday’s a holiday…
When I’m near to you…


Despite everything, things didn’t feel awkward between James and Lily. He still held her hand going back to her house, swinging their arms between them as he went, sort of walking half side-ways to look at her, twisting his head every now and then to see where he was going, but mostly looking at her. His eyes sort of searched her, paying her rapt attention, and she had a fleeting thought that she had never felt so listened to in all of her life.

And being listened to was a good thing for as they walked, they talked on the way. She told him about her father, and some of her best memories with him, and the horrible things that Petunia had said. And then, to cheer her up, James told her about Sirius and his stupid Christmas songs and the mischief that the Marauders had been up to since she’d left. He told her about Sirius convincing all the first years that James’s stag running about the castle was really Sirius’s dormitory desk…

She felt herself slowing down her gait as they reached her street, not wanting to arrive home, not wanting him to leave. But it was dark out - he’d lit his wand tip ages ago, holding it between them like a torch. The moon was out and the stars were filling up the sky. Somewhere an owl hooted and James looked up, “Sounded like Bubo.”

Lily flushed. “It… it could be. Bubo’s been coming here a lot actually. She just shows up, like she’s checking for letters.”

James laughed, “Well, that’s nice of her.”

Lily laughed, too. “I thought you were sending her.”

James swung his head side to side.

“Sorry,” she said with a giggle, “I didn’t mean to steal your owl.”

“No harm no… fowl,” he said.

Lily groaned.

“No really, Evans, I don’t give a hoot whooo she visits,” James grinned. “That was a two-fer, did you hear it?”

“Yes, I heard it,” she said and she playfully shoved him, “You and Sirius and those terrible bloody puns, they’re awful, really! No wonder you gits are friends...”

“Birds of a feather, Evans…”

She laughed and shook her head.

“I find them flocking hilarious myself, but --” he stopped suddenly mid-sentence, stumbling to a sudden halt, and brought his hand up to adjust the positioning of his glasses, staring ahead of them.

Lily looked up (she hadn’t realized that she’d been watching him and not where she was going at all, just staring at him) and there before them, just coming up the street, just arriving to her house, was Severus Snape, clutching his wand and a bouquet of lilies. He was frozen in place, his eyes wide, jaw dropped, staring at Lily and James and the happy expressions on their faces… and his face had gone even more pale than it usually was. His eyes were dark, unreadable.

“Sev!” Lily said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. This was not the way she would have had him to find out she’d been with James Potter - and she tried to suppress the images of the hamburger shop from floating about her mind too much, wanting to break it to him gently what had happened - but his eyes flashed to James, moving from his head to his foot in a quick assessment and Lily knew Severus had respected her wishes - hadn’t looked at her mind, but had immediately jumped onto James’s and -- well, whatever it was James was thinking… it clearly wasn’t what Severus Snape wanted to hear.

He reacted as though he’d been slapped. He reeled back a bit, his face wincing and turning away and he grit his teeth as though in pain and Lily realized she was still holding James’s hand, only because she’d dropped it and gone from James over to Severus and put her hand on his shoulder, “I’m so happy to see you,” she said, smiling at him, trying desperately to make it alright again, to show him that she still cared for him, that she could have both of the boys in her life and balance it and that everything would be alright, that nothing had changed. That he was still her friend.

Severus shoved the lilies into her hands, “Sorry about your father, Lily.”

Lily smelled the flowers - though they were very heavy with a pollen scent - and she looked up at him, “Thank you, Sev…”

“Don’t… mention it…” he murmured, and his eyes flashed to James with hatred.

Lily wondered what James was thinking that made Severus look like that.

And he turned quickly, practically running away.

“Severus -- wait --” Lily said, but Severus was too fast, he’d reached the corner and turned ‘round it before she could even start to follow.

When she turned back, she saw that James wore a funny expression on his face as he watched the other boy run away, and his knuckles white as he gripped his wand very, very tight…

Lily held the flowers Severus had given her and she walked back, her head hung to look at them, to run her fingertip over the leathery white petals, “Well. Thank you… for… for everything. I’d better…” she motioned to the house, “Good night.”

James stood silently at the gate and watched her go up the walkway, and he took a deep breath as she reached the door. She opened it up and the light of the hallway illuminated her from behind, making her glow, and she stared at him for a long moment. Finally she lifted one hand to wave to him and he grudgingly did the same, raising up his palm and nodding, and she leaned her cheek against the door’s edge a moment, staring at him, at the way the street lamps and his wand lit his face and the twist to his lip, the way even unsmiling his upper lip hung on his crooked tooth.

Finally, he turned and started walking away, his free hand shoved into his pocket, wand arm bumping off his thigh as he walked, lighting up the sidewalk at his feet with the illuminated tip of it… and she watched him ‘til the light disappeared ‘round the corner of the street, and she sighed, pushing the door shut behind her.

Mrs. Evans came up behind her from the living room. Only a couple guests were left - Lily could hear Vernon Dursley’s voice coming from the living room, droning on again about how his father was getting him a position selling drills the moment he turned sixteen and what a career man he would be…

“Where’s James?” Mrs. Evans asked, “Is he coming in? There’s still food…”

Lily shook her head, “No, he’s left.” She turned and handed the lilies to her mother. “Severus Snape brought these.”

“They’re lovely.” Mrs. Evans turned and Lily saw the bouquet of carnations and bluebells were in a vase on the narrow table, among the family photographs, and Mrs. Evans added the lilies to the bunch, smiling sadly and pausing to pick up the photograph Lily had taken down from the wall earlier. Mrs. Evans stared at the image of her husband fondly, with tears in her eyes, then hung it up in her proper place.

Lily’s eyes flitted to the water globe… The stag had gone away - where, she didn’t know, but the doe stood in the enchanted snow alone, looking about a bit helplessly as though she wanted the stag to come back. Lily reached for the water globe and held it in her palm.