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Omelettes


James was up before the sun. He cleaned the living room. Used his wand to move the telly so it made most sense of them to sit together on the couch instead of the two chairs his mum and dad usually sat in. He cut up all the ingredients for the omelettes and pulled two plates from the cabinet. He poured orange juice into cups and went out back and plucked a small handful of flowers that he tied together with string. He made coffee and he shook a bit of nutmeg into it.

When Lily Evans knocked on the door, James ran for it. He had on dark denim trousers and a nice plaid shirt with a sweatervest over it. He’d even put on a tie. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath as he reached for the knob and pulled open the door. “Evans!” he said, as though he hadn’t been waiting for the knock all morning. As though it were a bit of a surprise to see her. He smiled and opened the door wide to let her through. “Hullo. Good morning.”

She was wearing the romper outfit her mum had chosen for her last night and the pearls. Her hair was down in loose curls about her face.

James couldn’t believe how green her eyes looked.

“Morning James,” Lily answered, hoping she said his name the way he liked.

He smiled.

“The show’s a repeat, of course, but it’s supposed to be a good one and they’re playing all four parts ot the serial at once so we can see the whole film. It aired in January, I only got to see part one before we were back at Hogwarts… About Morbius? Did you see that one?”

Lily shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“What I’ve seen is brilliant,” he assured her.

“I mean it’s Doctor Who,” Lily laughed, “I don’t reckon it’s possible for it to be anything but.”

“I know, right?” James said, grinning, “Okay, but first.” He paused and plucked the flowers he’d picked for her that morning off the table in the hallway. “These are for you.”

Lily looked at them in surprise. “You got me flowers?”

“I picked them myself.”

Lily flushed, “They’re pretty.”

“These little buggers that haven’t opened yet are blue,” he said, pointing to the flowers, which he’d taken from a vine of them that climbed an archway in Dora’s garden. “Really pretty blue, like the sky. They’re great when they open.” They looked like white bulbs at the moment. There were also a few sprigs of teeny white flowers and little bitty pink roses and yellow and white daisies and he’d even plucked a few bits of grass and ferns to add some green to it...

“They’re pretty even closed,” Lily said.

“I have a cup of water for them in the kitchen,” he offered.

“Thank you,” Lily answered. She followed him through the hallway and her eyes lit curiously over the house as she followed him. The house was warm and comfortable, filled with love that was so thick you could feel it in the air. There were knick-knacks on little shelves, loads of raggedy old books, and family photos in mismatched frames… The telly glowed from the living room, the volume low. There were blankets and pillows on the couch.

The kitchen was lovely and clean and smelled like lemons and coffee and Lily smiled when James waved her into the seat where Dora usually sat, “Here, sit, sit,” James said. “Here’s the glass. I put a bit of sugar in the water, mum always says that helps flowers stay alive longer.” He put the glass in front of the seat. It was a tall, narrow glass, blue with a hobnail pattern. She gently put the flowers into it. When those blue flowers he’d talked about bloomed, the glass would be be perfect.

“Coffee?” James asked, pushing her seat in gently.

“Please,” she answered.

He turned and waved his wand, mugs came from the cupboard and the stein of coffee poured itself into them and Lily smiled when she saw the nutmeg swirling about - a bit more than she would’ve done herself, but she appreciated he’d remembered it. James smiled and said, “I know you like omelettes, I’ve seen you eat them at school before.”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“I have peppers and tomatoes and mushrooms and cheese and bacon and onions and garlic and loads of stuff already cut. What would you like?” He smiled, “I’m very good at making omelettes, Evans. My omelettes will make you fall in love with me. They’re a bonafide aphrodisiac.”

Lily laughed. “It all sounds marvelous, James, really.”

“Alright. One everything omelette coming right up.” He grinned and waved his wand and, being careful to go exactly as he’d practiced the night before, he worked at making the ingredients come together in the air over the stove in the most colourful, magical-looking way he knew how. She watched, mesmerized, because she didn’t usually get to see things like breakfast being made with magic, and she smiled as James waved his hand and wand about, biting his tongue in concentration.

Lily leaned forward to smell her flowers as the blue ones opened up, just as James had said they would.

When he’d created the perfect omelette (he was so bloody proud of himself and sooo very glad he’d thought to practice!), he took one of the plates and slid the colourful egg onto it, added a little sprig of herbs, and a couple strips of the bacon and he threw a towel over his arm like he was a maître d and he smiled as he put the platter before her. “Breakfast, madam.”

Lily laughed, “You nerd.”

James grinned.

He turned and made his own omelette with a lot less care than he’d put into hers… “You don’t have to wait for me love, go on and eat while it’s hot.” He smiled.

Lily took up the fork he’d laid by her plate and used it to cut off a bite and James watched, waving his wand to flip his in the pan. Please let it be good, please let it be good, pleeeeease let it be good, he begged the gods as Lily lifted the fork to her mouth, smiling shyly as he stared with hopeful eyes.

She was prepared to fake it even if the egg was made of rubber. But luckily, she didn’t have to pretend to like it. The omelette really was good. “Wow!” she said in surprise. “You really do make a good omelette.”

“YES!” James pumped his fist in excitement and Lily jumped at the sound of it. He flushed and turned quickly, taking a deep shaking breath and pretending to be quite involved in his own omelette for a moment, sprinkling extra peppers and bacon into it. “I mean… yes, yes I do… I’ve, er, thought of entering in omelette making competitions… so I could call my recipe blue ribbon omelettes, you know? But I figure my omelettes are just so bloody good it’s not fair to the other contestants… winning first, second, and third place with one omelette…”

Lily rolled her eyes at his back. But for once she didn’t see this as him bragging. Rather, James Potter was babbling, trying to fill a silence that weighed upon him. He was nervous, she realized.

So instead of thinking him egotistical, she gave him affirmation.

“These probably could win all three prizes. They’re very good.”

James’s face burned even hotter and he mouthed thank you, thank you, thank you to the gods as he loaded his own plate up. He turned around, keeping his face steady as could be, trying not to grin like an idiot, and he said, “Well, here, come along, we’ll eat the rest of this in the living room, the show’s about to start!”

“Alright,” Lily said. And James waved his wand and the two plates and glasses of orange juice and mugs of coffee and even the cup with her flowers and napkins went floating out to the living room and arranged themselves nicely on the coffee table before the couch and James ran ahead to throw a couple pillows down on the floor and offered her his hand to sit and Lily laughed as he tripped over his own two feet to go and turn up the volume on the telly and he fell into place beside her at the coffee table.

“Do you need salt? Pepper? Anything?”

“Everything is perfect, James.”

“Swear?”

“I swear,” Lily replied and she smiled.

The dreamy theme music for Doctor Who started playing and James turned to face the telly with a deep breath, his hands shaking nervously and he quickly shoveled several bites of omelette into his mouth to ease his stomach, which was churning with excitement in the disbelief that Lily Evans was sitting on his living room floor on purpose beside him eating food he made and smiling about it.

They ate as on the telly screen the Doctor and Sarah, his companion, as they investigated a planet where a mysterious happening was occurring where an alien microsurgeon name Solon was reconstructing a body for an evil rouge Timelord named Morbius, whose mind has been preserved through time, and the Doctor and Sarah had to work together to stop the evil Timelord’s return…

During a commercial break, when they’d finished eating, they moved from the floor up to the couch and James threw a blanket over their laps and Lily leaned back into the cushion, their feet up on the edge of the coffee table as they watched, James trying to get up the nerve to put his arm around her… but not quite daring to… until…

As the ending was coming, the most climatic part of the whole show, Sarah, the companion, was captured by Solon and his little henchman, a man named Condo who had been given a replacement arm for being such a marvelous servant to Solon and Morbius in their work to revive the dark Timelord… Lily pressed her face into James’s shoulder nervously as they tied Sarah up and Solon prepared to cut off her head, planning to use her head for the final piece he needed in constructing the new form of Morbius… Lily closed her eyes, “I can’t watch!” she whimpered.

James finally put his arm ‘round her shoulders. “It’s alright. You know Sarah can’t die, she’s in the ads for the new Christmas special, isn’t she?” he said.

“But he’s a Timelord, he could go back and find a past version of her if he wanted to, couldn’t he? This could be when she dies.” Lily leaned into him. Her palm on his chest.

James stared down at her hand. “I s’pose he could.” Honestly, James had no idea what happened next on the show. All that existed was her hand on his chest. The smell of her hair in his nose. The feeling of her weight against his side… James Potter couldn’t have cared less if the Doctor himself was killed at that point.

All that mattered in all of the world was that Lily Evans was cuddling with him.