Attack of the Zombie Bears for jlarinda
"I'll be ready in five minutes." Lily kissed his temple distractedly and made her way towards the bathroom fiddling with one of her earrings.
James looked around the bedroom with an odd feeling creeping into his belly. He'd been in Lily's bedroom before, of course, when she was grabbing her coat or applying lip gloss or doing some other unfathomable girly thing.
James tugged at the black bow tie currently trying to suffocate him and wondered why he was so bloody nervous. He had been in Lily's bedroom before, but it had never looked quite so... Foreign. Otherworldly.
Not wanting to touch anything that might break or explode from his mere proximity, James gingerly made his way to the little twin bed covered in what looked like a homemade quilt. Bed he could understand. Quilt made sense.
There was, however, a large assortment of furry things living on the bed that he couldn't quite wrap his brain around.
They were all sorts of strange colors and shapes with large shiny dead eyes and permanently frozen smiles. James tentatively reached out and poked the nearest one -- a vaguely bear-shaped creature with yellow and pink fur. It toppled over and fell off the bed. Scrambling to put it back where it had been, James thought fondly of the telling off his own childhood teddy bear would have given him if he'd done something so careless as let it tumble off the bed. He should never have taught it all those dirty words.
"James?" Lily called from the bathroom.
"Nothing!" he said, hastily shoving the lifeless bear-thing back into place amid the others. They all stared at him with their wide glassy eyes. He shivered and turned away, tugging at his collar.
"I was just going to ask what you thought of your tux," she said. He could hear the smile in her voice.
"Oh, er..." He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hung on her closet door and turned to look at himself more clearly. Running a hand through his hair, he shrugged.
"I like the racing stripes on these trousers."
Lily laughed from somewhere in the depths of the bathroom.
James took another few steps towards the mirror. "What do you think? Do I look like a proper Muggle?" he asked it, buttoning his jacket and then unbuttoning it again, running his fingers over the odd ruffles on the shirt. "Or a ponce in a pirate shirt?" The mirror chose not to reply. "Very diplomatic," James said to it wryly.
To his left was Lily's desk. It was small and painted a rather too cheery shade of yellow, but on it were things he could relate to, things he could understand: quills, parchment, several bottles of ink, and even a copy of the Standard Book of Spells, Year Seven. But there were other things as well. Books he did not recognize, one in a sparkly purple cover with a tantalizingly tiny little lock on it, more terrifying stuffed creatures, the little wooden pencils Lily was known for wearing behind her ear, and a red cylinder with the words "Coca-Cola" written across it in appealing script. James recognized the latter at once.
"Can I have a drink of your soda pop?" he asked. For a moment, Lily said nothing, and James wondered if he might have been wrong about the name; it was a bloody stupid name for a drink, after all.
"Yeah, sure," Lily called back. "But it might be flat."
James picked up the can. It wasn't flat at all, but still perfectly round. "No, it's fine," he said. He sniffed the rim of it, put the can to his lips and took a long swig.
At which point something went terribly wrong. The drink was trying to climb up his nose. Horrified, he coughed and sputtered until the ghastly tickling sensation went away. Hastily, he set the can back on Lily's desk and moved to the opposite side of the room, tugging at his bow tie once more. He was going to have nightmares about this room, he was sure of it.
Just then, Lily emerged from the bathroom. She looked stunning in a long green dress that brought out her eyes and the highlights in her hair and all at once, all thoughts of zombie teddy bears and murderous beverages were driven out of his brain and all he could think was something along the lines of, "Guh."
Thankfully, some higher brain function took over and what he actually managed to say was, "You look beautiful."
Lily shot him a very sweet smile, which did things to his insides that he had previously not known were possible, as she picked up her bag from the bed and put her wand into it.
"You're bringing that?" James asked as she came to take his arm.
"Of course. Didn't you bring yours?"
James shook his head. "Your sister told me that I had to be on my best behaviour and that troll of a fiance of hers threatened to call some people named Bobby if I did any 'funny business'."
Lily laughed. "Don't tell me you're afraid of Vernon Dursley? He's just frightened by things he doesn't understand."
"Yes, well a list that large would frighten anybody," James huffed.
Lily stopped in the little hallway outside her bedroom to close the door, and she muttered a simple locking charm before turning back to look at James.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to," she said quietly, reaching up to straighten the bow tie he seemed to be determined to rend askew.
He caught her small hand in one of his and pressed her fingertips to his lips. "You want me to go," he said simply, "and I'd do anything for you."
Lily smiled and kissed him, murmuring her thanks against his lips.
"Even brave the horrors of the zombie bears and the popping soda and wear pirate shirts and pants with racing stripes and..."
Lily's laughter rang out into the night.