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Best-Friends-In-Law


That night was the last night at Hogwarts before holiday - all of the exams were finished, the Great Hall was a festive explosion of banners (blue, for it was Ravenclaw that had won the House Cup - and James stared on from his place on the bench, vowing that next year the Gryffindor Quidditch team would be so spiffing that their house would be a shoe-in to win the Cup), and the feast was phenomenal. Dumbledore congratulated the seventh years on their completion of the N.E.W.T.s and reminded them that they would get their final grades within the week and when the commencement ceremonies would occur and it was this that made Frank Longbottom’s face go rather pale.

“S’matter, Frankie?” Sirius asked, sliding his arm ‘round Frank’s shoulders, “Why the looooong(bottom) face?” He grinned at his own stupid pun.

“Just that I’ve only now realized that I’m a seventh year next term,” Frank said. He looked ‘round at them. “Bloody hell.”

Alice turned ‘round, “Don’t remind me. I’m stuck here two years without you.”

“Miserable,” Frank murmured.

Lily frowned.

“I’ll be needing a new Beater. Ugh. But nobody’s even close to half as good as you are Frank!” James complained, then “Oi, perhaps you could fail and stay on a couple extra terms…?”

“Would break my mum’s heart, that would,” Frank laughed.

Sirius said, “Yeah but at least James would have his Beater. And thank Merlin, too, because as much as James enjoys beating things --” he thrust his hips up from the table and made a rather suggestive gesture and his eyes twinkled mischievously as James turned scarlet and kicked Sirius in the shin, and Frank spit pumpkin juice all over the table, “-- he wouldn’t be a very good beater.”

Frank shook his head, “Oh Sirius Black, you really are mad.”

Sirius grinned, “The maddest, Frank darling. The maddest.”

That night, the common room was a party and despite Sirius’s firewhiskey having been poured out, someone else provided the drinks and there was plenty to go around so that halfway through the evening Sirius was balancing on the back of the couch and magicking levitating anything that wasn’t nailed down in the common room, laughing as Ollie Kent looked about in a panic as the chair he was on lifted up from the floor and joined the tide pool of levitating objects about the room. “Don’t drop me, don’t drop me, don’t drop me!” he begged, clinging to the chair.

Sirius guffawed loudly, “Oh little bean, you worry too fucking much!”

The music was loud and James snuck away part way through the evening, heading up those funny back steps that Remus had shown him, taking with him a cigarette from a pack he’d bought off a seventh year who had a whole pack of them rolled up under the sleeve on his bicep. And James stood out in the warm spring air on the little balcony, where Remus had told him the differences between the timelines and he looked out over the forest, over the lake and the village far below, up at the stars, with their sparkling shimmering, and the hazy glow of the fingernail shaped moon. He leaned against the rail and held the unlit cigarette in his fingers, looking it over, and held it up to his nose to smell the menthol and the tobacco.

The door behind him creaked as it opened and he turned around, expecting to see Remus, who notoriously slipped away from parties, and he had a half-grin on his face, about to say the words wotcher Moony when he realized it wasn’t Moony at all.

“Evans,” he said in surprise, lowering the cigarette from his nose.

“Hey Potter,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. And James took a deep breath, trying to be cool. He turned back to the balcony, letting out the breath. Don’t say idiot things, don’t say idiot things, he coached himself.

Lily walked over to where he stood and she looked around, “It’s lovely up here,” she commented.

James nodded, “Remus showed it to me last month.”

“Yeah, he’s the one who showed me, too,” Lily smiled, “Leave it to Rey to find it. I swear that boy knows everything there is in the entire world.”

“Possibly.” James nodded.

She pointed, “You were smoking.”

James flushed. “Sort of.”

“Can I have one?”

“You smoke Evans?”

“I haven’t before but… maybe I’ll start.”

James smirked. “Evans, you are far too innocent for smoking.”

“I’m not innocent. You don’t know. I could be… I could be a bad ass.”

James’s eyes sparkled, “Alright bad ass, here you are, then.” So he took the pack out of the pocket of his oxford, where he’d stashed it, and he shook one of the cigarettes so it stood up for her to take. Gingerly, with a look of sweet defiance about her face, Lily plucked it from the box and tucked the end of it in her mouth. A smile crossed James’s face and he reached up, took the cigarette out of her mouth and turned it over. “Wrong way, love,” he said, putting it back into her mouth.

Lily flushed. “Okay so I have some stuff to learn.”

James said, “Maybe a little.” His lips were trembling from holding back a laugh at her expense.

She stared up at him. His eyes were just so bright, she marvelled at them for about the hundredth-millionth time. Merlin, why did he have to be so handsome? Was it even legal to look that good when you were all unshaven and specky? Her voice shook. “Do you have a lighter?”

“Are you a witch or what?” he asked, and before she could answer, he held up his wand and whispered, “Ignus,” he whispered and a small flame, like a candle flickering, lit at the tip of his wand. He smiled and stuck his cigarette into his mouth, holding it with his teeth and cupped his hand ‘round the flame so it wouldn’t go out… then leaned in and puffed his cheeks like he’d seen Sirius do to light the cigarette.

Please light, don’t make me look like a doofus, please, he begged the cigarette.

Then Lily leaned in and she was mimicking him, pinching her cigarette between her fingers, their foreheads touching they were so close together, both cigarettes in the flame, both their cheeks moving, pulling the fire in to ignite and then a spark and both tips were lit, smoke slipping into their mouths. James pulled back first, drawing the cigarette away from his lips with his fingers and breathing out the smoke that had filled his lungs.

He was extremely lucky because it was the first time that had gone so smoothly for him - usually he would start hacking and coughing so hard that he would feel as though his esophagus was coming out his nose. But - miracle of miracles - he’d managed to do it without choking to death in front of Lily Evans.

She coughed a little - delicate little things that sounded like a bird choking. James smirked as she huffed the smoke out of her mouth, her eyes watering. Then, “Merlin’s beard, Potter, you can’t possibly like the way this rubbish tastes?” she stuck out her tongue and made a face as the cigarette smoked from her fingers.

James laughed and reached over, tucking a bit of stray hair behind her ear. “I’ve had worse things in my mouth.” His face burned red and his hand dropped away. “Well,” he said, cheeks flaming, “That sounded terrible.”

Lily laughed, “You’re lucky Sirius isn’t here.”

“Bloody hell, the jokes.”

“They’d be so raunchy.”

“So very raunchy.”

Lily laughed and she smiled and put her hand up on the hair James had just moved. “It is pretty, though,” she said, looking at the orange glow of the embers in the tobacco.

James nodded, “It is.”

“Tastes like shit.”

He laughed, “Like black licorice.”

“Gods! It does!”

James smirked. “Honestly, I like the scent better than the flavor.”

She looked up at him, her bright green eyes glowing, reflecting the stars.

James took another drag off his cigarette and breathed slowly, letting the smoke drift from his mouth in a streaming cloud, staring back into her eyes and a smile quirked across his mouth.

“What?” she asked, “Are you laughing at me again?”

“Absolutely not, love.”

“Swear it?”

“With all my soul.”

Lily eyed him. “Then what are you smirking about?”

He’d been thinking how close they’d be by now if the timelines hadn’t been interrupted.

If they’d both made it to the Three Broomsticks on 24 April after all.

Or, even better, if he had just fucking kissed her back at Christmas in that stupid hamburger parlor under that blasted mistletoe. If he’d just pulled her in and pressed his mouth to hers…

If only so many things that would’ve put them at such a different place than this.

“Just it’s been a long year, Evans…” he mused, and he took a drag off the cigarette.

“It has,” she nodded. “Lots has happened.”

James nodded, too. “I heard you’re going to the sea this summer.”

She nodded again.

“Taking my dog with you.”

“Remus said I need to get him a leash.”

“Yeah, if you don’t he’ll just run amok everywhere and he’ll totally take a poo in your neighbor’s yard. I know. Been there, done that. Trust me, it’s rough.”

Lily laughed, “Maybe I should rethink this.”

“Nawh.” James shook his head, “Sirius is a pain in the arse, but he’s the most amazing person there is, too. You’ll have a lot of fun and… honestly, I think it’ll be good for him to get some fresh air and some distance from -- you know, everything.”

James leaned one hand against the balcony, facing her still, his elbow bent on the stone.

A wind blew.

Lily shivered.

James reached up and shrugged his jumper off - that one jumper - and he slid it ‘round her shoulders. “I expect it back this time, Evans.”

Lily laughed, “I still don’t know how I got it last time, honestly.”

James knew.

Lily stared up at him. He’d drawn himself closer without meaning to as he’d tucked the jumper ‘round her.

“You know, James,” Lily said, and her voice was sort of slow as though she was calculating what to say and how to say it, “If Remus is my best friend - which, despite everything and us not talking a whole lot this term and all, I would honestly still say he is - and Sirius is your best friend - which, obviously --”

“Obviously,” James nodded, smirking.

“Then it should really be our joint project to - you know - get the arseholes back together because I’m not digging this whole broken up, lovesick depression thing they’ve got going on. Are you?”

James shook his head, “Not even a little bit of digging is happening, Evans,” he said, and he lifted the cigarette to his mouth again.

Lily said, “So… I was thinking… if we work together… and sort of…” she motioned pushing two things together, “Maybe we could fix it.”

James smiled. “Just… smoosh?” he imitated the motion she’d made.

Lily nodded.

James threw his spent cigarette onto the stone beneath him and snuffed it with his trainer, then motioned for hers, which was half ash by now from just being held up and burning aimlessly, and she handed it over. James shook the ash off and he took a drag off it, not wanting the cigarette to go to waste. He hesitated as the smoke streamed between his lips and floated off over the turrets of the castle. “Evans, you do know that if your best friend is my best friend’s boyfriend, that makes you and I best-friends-in-law?”

Lily laughed. “Oh. Is that what it makes us?”

James nodded.

“Well then,” she said, “James Potter. Will you help me make you become my best-friend-in-law again?”

James smiled around the cigarette in his mouth, “Absolutely, Evans,” he answered, and the amber tip flickered as the cigarette bobbled up and down with his lips as he spoke.