fic: Roundabout Kisses
title: Roundabout kisses
prompt: Summer
pairing: James/Lily
words: 2326
rating: PG
Roundabout Kisses
There were many things Lily Evans frowned upon: bad treatment of House-Elves, bullying, cheaters, facial hair, narcissism, talking in the library, public displays of affection…
But something-someone-who topped the list of being the most frowned upon was none other than James Potter.
She gave another sigh as the boy pressed his face against the door window of the train compartment she was seated inside. She was on the journey home from Hogwarts and sixth year had ended relatively well. There had been only two recorded accounts of nearly killing James. Last year it had been seventeen.
Though, as his nose was pushed against the glass, the insides of his nostrils on show, she had a feeling the score would notch up to three…
“Aren’t you going to do something about that?” Lily’s friend Isabel gestured at James thumping the glass to let him in.
“Just ignore him and he’ll go away,” Lily replied calmly, reading a book in her lap.
“Maybe you should just let him in.”
“He’s not coming in here,” Lily said at once. She’d made sure to lock the compartment securely, a problem for Isabel as she needed the toilet at least half an hour ago.
“Lily, please don’t hate me,” Isabel pleaded suddenly.
She looked up from her book to eye her friend strangely. “If you don’t give me a reason to hate you, then I won’t.”
Isabel bit her lip in worry.
“You’ve given me a reason to hate you, haven’t you?” Lily’s saw through her quickly. “What exactly have you done?”
Isabel stood up, pointing accusingly to James outside. “He tricked me!”
Lily turned even more nervous by the fact that James Potter was involved somehow. “What has he got to do with whatever you’re talking about?” she demanded.
“I…” Isabel swallowed, took a deep breath, and blurted out, “I might have slipped to Potter your home address.”
Lily exploded.
“You did what?”
“He cornered me!” Isabel pointed to James again. “He made puppy dog eyes and everything! And he gave me chocolate!”
Lily couldn’t believe her ears. “How could you give him my home address? He knows where I live now, thank you very bloody much!”
“It’s just an address...”
“Oh God.” Lily sat with her head between her knees. “Oh God, he’s going to turn up at my house and eat my food. He’s going to try and meet my parents.”
Isabel let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that…”
Mutually, the girls looked over at James who was waving at them with the most ill-behaved smile they’d ever seen.
“Oh no.”
***
“Mum, can we move?” Lily asked the second they’d got home.
Mrs Evans shot her a blank stare before replying with a flat, “No.”
Bollocks, Lily thought, trudging to her bedroom. I was so sure that would have worked…
***
“Mum, can I just say that that if a boy happens to turn up at the door, you should either not answer it, or call the police.”
Mrs Evans shot her the usual blank stare. “Why would I call the police?”
“Because…” Her eyes darted wildly as she fumbled for an excuse. “Because on the news there was a report of a boy who escaped the local mental asylum.” She frowned at herself for coming up with something so bizarre, but continued regardless, “The boy is crazy and could kill you… with… with just his little toe!”
Her mother let out a snort. “Are you quite sure we don’t need to send you to this mental asylum, love?”
“Mum!” Lily said, scandalized. “Mum, just don’t answer the door to a boy with messy hair and glasses, alright?”
“Alright, alright.”
***
“Dad! Dad, don’t answer the door! Dad, don’t do it!”
“Lily, for goodness' sake, it’s the bloody milkman!”
“… as you were.”
***
“Lily, what is the matter with you?” Mrs Evans questioned her daughter at dinner. It had been a week since Lily had come home from Hogwarts and her nervous behaviour had not gone unnoticed. “You’ve been acting strange ever since you got back from school.”
“I’m fine, mum,” Lily reassured her, hating it when her mother made a fuss.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Who’s that?” she whispered fearfully.
“If you answer the door maybe you’ll find out,” her sister Petunia sneered from across the table. Lily was too anxious by the idea of it being James to even formulate a smart retort.
“I’ll get it!” She jumped to her feet and thrust her father, who was on his way of getting up for the door, back into his seat. “Don’t get up! Nobody move! I’ll get it!”
She shut the kitchen door behind her and hurried across the hallway to the front door, all the while chanting in her mind, please don’t be Potter, please don’t be Potter, please don’t be Potter, though she strangely noticed the “don’t” part was not as firm as she imagined.
But when she swung open the door it wasn’t James - it was a neighbour, babbling on about a beloved missing cat. She hadn’t really been listening, busy overwhelmed by the feeling of… disappointment, was it? Was she upset that it hadn’t been James at her door? If she was, she’d never admit it to herself.
“May I be excused?” she asked once back in the kitchen and the neighbour gone. “I’m fine, mum,” she added, noticing her mother’s perturbing gaze upon her. “Really, I am.”
Eventually her father nodded, and she made the journey up the staircase to her room. Once inside, she wandered over to her bedroom window and pulled back the curtain a fraction, gazing through the pane and out into the gloom of the cold night air, the only source of light a dim streetlamp flickering by her house. She swore for just a small moment, when the glow of the streetlight lit up an area of the ground, that there was a figure standing below.
It’s been seven days, Potter, Lily thought, sitting on the edge of her bed, only shadows in the darkness for company. Come already.
***
Summer days were long and passed slower than usual. She normally relished in summer, but her heart ached to be back in Hogwarts more than anything. Home meant being in the company of her sister, and Petunia had become more annoying with age. She’d been in constant contact with Isabel; she always asked Lily if Potter had turned up at her house. He hadn’t. And she hadn’t got any sleep because of that.
On the last day of summer she couldn’t sleep more than anything. The next day not only would she be returning to school as a Seventh Year, but as Head Girl. At four in the morning she crept out of bed and went into the kitchen for a glass of water.
It was when she was sipping from the glass she heard a knock at the door, a knock so faint that it could only be heard from anyone who was downstairs with good hearing.
“It’s four in the morning,” Lily said under her breath, slamming down her glass of water and marching to the front door. “It better not be bloody kids messing about--”
She was exactly right as she pulled open the door, except there was only one bloody kid there, and he went by the name of James Potter. A broom over his shoulder, his hair handsomely windswept, and he was shaking (though she wasn’t sure if it was from nerves judging by his uneasy expression, or the chilliness). Meeting each other’s eyes caused them both to blush. She tied her dressing gown tighter around her body and smoothed down her bed hair.
“Potter,” she murmured, not quite believing it. “Do you realize the time?”
“Sorry,” he finally spoke up, and Lily marvelled at how embarrassed he sounded. “Would you… come take a walk with me somewhere?”
She didn’t know where Somewhere was, but she had a feeling it could be Anywhere and she would go with him regardless. She glanced upstairs and thought of her parents - she could get away with it if she was quiet enough. “Alright,” she agreed, grabbing a coat and scarf and putting on a pair of shoes. She shut the door softly after her with a click and walked with him to the small park just across from her house.
“You flew over here?” she asked taken aback, staring at the familiar broom that was never separated from his side in Hogwarts.
“Yeah, your house is quite a long way. My bollocks hurt and I can’t really feel my fingers right now,” he admitted, and Lily fought back a laugh at his pain.
They entered the park for somewhere to sit down; James put down his broom and went straight for the roundabout.
“Not a fan of the swings?” Lily said, following him.
“Don’t swing both ways,” he quipped, and Lily raised an eyebrow, not sure if she preferred the Potter before that was tense to the Potter now that was confident and making rather amusing jokes.
She was surprised when he hadn’t gotten on the roundabout yet; he was waiting for her to get on first, much like a gentleman. She stepped on, grabbed a bar as James immediately started running to spin it.
“Not too fast!” she complained, clinging for her life.
“Faster’s always better,” he grinned, hopping onto the roundabout and swinging his head back.
There was nothing else to focus on but him, everything around her blurs and blobs that rushed as they twirled around her in a mix of dizzy colours.
“You had all summer to come see me,” Lily said, enjoying the breeze and the light-headedness. “Yet you left it to the last minute, like always.” She sent him the usual unimpressed look that insisted she was right - as always, too.
“Actually,” James hopped off for a second so he could spin the roundabout faster, “I came to your house every night.”
Lily tried to soak in his words as she stuck to the bars tighter.
“You know that streetlight right outside your house?” James leaped back onto the roundabout and stared at her from across it with a gaze that was both intense but capturing. “Every night I’ve flown here and leant against that streetlight, looked up at your bedroom window-” he looked up at that second, as though imagining it in his mind “-and wondered what the hell to say to you if I knocked on the door and you answered.” He gave a feeble shrug. “Couldn’t think of anything,” he confessed shamefully.
Lily struggled with one hand to tighten her scarf around her neck exposed to the cool air. “The mighty James Potter, one who always knows what to say, drawn to a blank.”
“Suppose that’s how much you have a maddening impact on me,” James concluded, and Lily looked away, reddening.
“I’m Head Boy,” James said all of a sudden. He sounded nervous again, as though he was worried he wasn’t capable to fulfil the position.
“How ironic,” Lily sighed at James with a curl in her mouth. “I’m Head Girl.”
Suddenly being Head Boy didn’t seem so scary to James. “We’ll be working close together, then,” he smirked.
“Depends what your definition of ‘close’ means,” Lily sent him a wry smile.
As the roundabout sped faster than ever, she watched James twist his eyes shut and let his head fall back, boldly letting go of the bars and spreading out his arms like wings. The robes he was wearing blew back a little, almost giving him the impression of standing on the edge of a windy cliff, smiling like a fool. Lily wanted to feel that. She shut her eyes as well, releasing her hands from the bar, though not as willingly as James. She instantly began to wobble and let out a yelp.
“Careful.” James was suddenly at her side, one hand holding onto her waist, his fingers interlocking with hers in the other. She was about to launch into a spectacle of how inappropriate he was being-no matter how pleasant it was-when he hushed her, closing her eyes again with the tips of his fore and middle finger.
She stood still as the roundabout continued to spin, silent and blind, the warmth of James enfolding her making her even dizzier.
“Scared?” he whispered close to her ear.
Of what I undeniably feel for you, Lily answered in her mind, yes. Yet of falling… not so much.
She felt soft lips meet her mouth, and her arms curled round James' neck as she pulled him closer. At that moment, when all she could hear was the wind rushing serenely passed her ears; the indescribable sensation of flying; James' velvety mouth; she concluded roundabout kisses were kisses of the best kind.
She let off a yelp against his lips as she felt herself wobble again, falling and bringing James with her to a crash against the tarmac below.
“Graceful,” James commented painfully on his back. “You okay?”
He checked Lily over. She was laughing uncontrollably on her side, green eyes brighter than ever, stretching as though she’d just awaken from a deep sleep. She gave a little nod to him, smiling. She could lie there forever, but remembering they’d be taking the Hogwarts Express back to school in just a few hours prompted her back to reality.
“I should be getting back...”
James stood up, readjusting his askew glasses from the fall. He looked down at her lying there-she looks like a fallen angel-and stretched out his hand for her to take.
“One more?” he asked hopefully.
Her lips quirked as she let him pull her to her feet. As they spun one final time that night, James grinned into Lily's hair, “It’ll be a pleasure working with you,” and she thought the exact same thing back, breathing him in.
prompt: Summer
pairing: James/Lily
words: 2326
rating: PG
Roundabout Kisses
There were many things Lily Evans frowned upon: bad treatment of House-Elves, bullying, cheaters, facial hair, narcissism, talking in the library, public displays of affection…
But something-someone-who topped the list of being the most frowned upon was none other than James Potter.
She gave another sigh as the boy pressed his face against the door window of the train compartment she was seated inside. She was on the journey home from Hogwarts and sixth year had ended relatively well. There had been only two recorded accounts of nearly killing James. Last year it had been seventeen.
Though, as his nose was pushed against the glass, the insides of his nostrils on show, she had a feeling the score would notch up to three…
“Aren’t you going to do something about that?” Lily’s friend Isabel gestured at James thumping the glass to let him in.
“Just ignore him and he’ll go away,” Lily replied calmly, reading a book in her lap.
“Maybe you should just let him in.”
“He’s not coming in here,” Lily said at once. She’d made sure to lock the compartment securely, a problem for Isabel as she needed the toilet at least half an hour ago.
“Lily, please don’t hate me,” Isabel pleaded suddenly.
She looked up from her book to eye her friend strangely. “If you don’t give me a reason to hate you, then I won’t.”
Isabel bit her lip in worry.
“You’ve given me a reason to hate you, haven’t you?” Lily’s saw through her quickly. “What exactly have you done?”
Isabel stood up, pointing accusingly to James outside. “He tricked me!”
Lily turned even more nervous by the fact that James Potter was involved somehow. “What has he got to do with whatever you’re talking about?” she demanded.
“I…” Isabel swallowed, took a deep breath, and blurted out, “I might have slipped to Potter your home address.”
Lily exploded.
“You did what?”
“He cornered me!” Isabel pointed to James again. “He made puppy dog eyes and everything! And he gave me chocolate!”
Lily couldn’t believe her ears. “How could you give him my home address? He knows where I live now, thank you very bloody much!”
“It’s just an address...”
“Oh God.” Lily sat with her head between her knees. “Oh God, he’s going to turn up at my house and eat my food. He’s going to try and meet my parents.”
Isabel let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that…”
Mutually, the girls looked over at James who was waving at them with the most ill-behaved smile they’d ever seen.
“Oh no.”
***
“Mum, can we move?” Lily asked the second they’d got home.
Mrs Evans shot her a blank stare before replying with a flat, “No.”
Bollocks, Lily thought, trudging to her bedroom. I was so sure that would have worked…
***
“Mum, can I just say that that if a boy happens to turn up at the door, you should either not answer it, or call the police.”
Mrs Evans shot her the usual blank stare. “Why would I call the police?”
“Because…” Her eyes darted wildly as she fumbled for an excuse. “Because on the news there was a report of a boy who escaped the local mental asylum.” She frowned at herself for coming up with something so bizarre, but continued regardless, “The boy is crazy and could kill you… with… with just his little toe!”
Her mother let out a snort. “Are you quite sure we don’t need to send you to this mental asylum, love?”
“Mum!” Lily said, scandalized. “Mum, just don’t answer the door to a boy with messy hair and glasses, alright?”
“Alright, alright.”
***
“Dad! Dad, don’t answer the door! Dad, don’t do it!”
“Lily, for goodness' sake, it’s the bloody milkman!”
“… as you were.”
***
“Lily, what is the matter with you?” Mrs Evans questioned her daughter at dinner. It had been a week since Lily had come home from Hogwarts and her nervous behaviour had not gone unnoticed. “You’ve been acting strange ever since you got back from school.”
“I’m fine, mum,” Lily reassured her, hating it when her mother made a fuss.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Who’s that?” she whispered fearfully.
“If you answer the door maybe you’ll find out,” her sister Petunia sneered from across the table. Lily was too anxious by the idea of it being James to even formulate a smart retort.
“I’ll get it!” She jumped to her feet and thrust her father, who was on his way of getting up for the door, back into his seat. “Don’t get up! Nobody move! I’ll get it!”
She shut the kitchen door behind her and hurried across the hallway to the front door, all the while chanting in her mind, please don’t be Potter, please don’t be Potter, please don’t be Potter, though she strangely noticed the “don’t” part was not as firm as she imagined.
But when she swung open the door it wasn’t James - it was a neighbour, babbling on about a beloved missing cat. She hadn’t really been listening, busy overwhelmed by the feeling of… disappointment, was it? Was she upset that it hadn’t been James at her door? If she was, she’d never admit it to herself.
“May I be excused?” she asked once back in the kitchen and the neighbour gone. “I’m fine, mum,” she added, noticing her mother’s perturbing gaze upon her. “Really, I am.”
Eventually her father nodded, and she made the journey up the staircase to her room. Once inside, she wandered over to her bedroom window and pulled back the curtain a fraction, gazing through the pane and out into the gloom of the cold night air, the only source of light a dim streetlamp flickering by her house. She swore for just a small moment, when the glow of the streetlight lit up an area of the ground, that there was a figure standing below.
It’s been seven days, Potter, Lily thought, sitting on the edge of her bed, only shadows in the darkness for company. Come already.
***
Summer days were long and passed slower than usual. She normally relished in summer, but her heart ached to be back in Hogwarts more than anything. Home meant being in the company of her sister, and Petunia had become more annoying with age. She’d been in constant contact with Isabel; she always asked Lily if Potter had turned up at her house. He hadn’t. And she hadn’t got any sleep because of that.
On the last day of summer she couldn’t sleep more than anything. The next day not only would she be returning to school as a Seventh Year, but as Head Girl. At four in the morning she crept out of bed and went into the kitchen for a glass of water.
It was when she was sipping from the glass she heard a knock at the door, a knock so faint that it could only be heard from anyone who was downstairs with good hearing.
“It’s four in the morning,” Lily said under her breath, slamming down her glass of water and marching to the front door. “It better not be bloody kids messing about--”
She was exactly right as she pulled open the door, except there was only one bloody kid there, and he went by the name of James Potter. A broom over his shoulder, his hair handsomely windswept, and he was shaking (though she wasn’t sure if it was from nerves judging by his uneasy expression, or the chilliness). Meeting each other’s eyes caused them both to blush. She tied her dressing gown tighter around her body and smoothed down her bed hair.
“Potter,” she murmured, not quite believing it. “Do you realize the time?”
“Sorry,” he finally spoke up, and Lily marvelled at how embarrassed he sounded. “Would you… come take a walk with me somewhere?”
She didn’t know where Somewhere was, but she had a feeling it could be Anywhere and she would go with him regardless. She glanced upstairs and thought of her parents - she could get away with it if she was quiet enough. “Alright,” she agreed, grabbing a coat and scarf and putting on a pair of shoes. She shut the door softly after her with a click and walked with him to the small park just across from her house.
“You flew over here?” she asked taken aback, staring at the familiar broom that was never separated from his side in Hogwarts.
“Yeah, your house is quite a long way. My bollocks hurt and I can’t really feel my fingers right now,” he admitted, and Lily fought back a laugh at his pain.
They entered the park for somewhere to sit down; James put down his broom and went straight for the roundabout.
“Not a fan of the swings?” Lily said, following him.
“Don’t swing both ways,” he quipped, and Lily raised an eyebrow, not sure if she preferred the Potter before that was tense to the Potter now that was confident and making rather amusing jokes.
She was surprised when he hadn’t gotten on the roundabout yet; he was waiting for her to get on first, much like a gentleman. She stepped on, grabbed a bar as James immediately started running to spin it.
“Not too fast!” she complained, clinging for her life.
“Faster’s always better,” he grinned, hopping onto the roundabout and swinging his head back.
There was nothing else to focus on but him, everything around her blurs and blobs that rushed as they twirled around her in a mix of dizzy colours.
“You had all summer to come see me,” Lily said, enjoying the breeze and the light-headedness. “Yet you left it to the last minute, like always.” She sent him the usual unimpressed look that insisted she was right - as always, too.
“Actually,” James hopped off for a second so he could spin the roundabout faster, “I came to your house every night.”
Lily tried to soak in his words as she stuck to the bars tighter.
“You know that streetlight right outside your house?” James leaped back onto the roundabout and stared at her from across it with a gaze that was both intense but capturing. “Every night I’ve flown here and leant against that streetlight, looked up at your bedroom window-” he looked up at that second, as though imagining it in his mind “-and wondered what the hell to say to you if I knocked on the door and you answered.” He gave a feeble shrug. “Couldn’t think of anything,” he confessed shamefully.
Lily struggled with one hand to tighten her scarf around her neck exposed to the cool air. “The mighty James Potter, one who always knows what to say, drawn to a blank.”
“Suppose that’s how much you have a maddening impact on me,” James concluded, and Lily looked away, reddening.
“I’m Head Boy,” James said all of a sudden. He sounded nervous again, as though he was worried he wasn’t capable to fulfil the position.
“How ironic,” Lily sighed at James with a curl in her mouth. “I’m Head Girl.”
Suddenly being Head Boy didn’t seem so scary to James. “We’ll be working close together, then,” he smirked.
“Depends what your definition of ‘close’ means,” Lily sent him a wry smile.
As the roundabout sped faster than ever, she watched James twist his eyes shut and let his head fall back, boldly letting go of the bars and spreading out his arms like wings. The robes he was wearing blew back a little, almost giving him the impression of standing on the edge of a windy cliff, smiling like a fool. Lily wanted to feel that. She shut her eyes as well, releasing her hands from the bar, though not as willingly as James. She instantly began to wobble and let out a yelp.
“Careful.” James was suddenly at her side, one hand holding onto her waist, his fingers interlocking with hers in the other. She was about to launch into a spectacle of how inappropriate he was being-no matter how pleasant it was-when he hushed her, closing her eyes again with the tips of his fore and middle finger.
She stood still as the roundabout continued to spin, silent and blind, the warmth of James enfolding her making her even dizzier.
“Scared?” he whispered close to her ear.
Of what I undeniably feel for you, Lily answered in her mind, yes. Yet of falling… not so much.
She felt soft lips meet her mouth, and her arms curled round James' neck as she pulled him closer. At that moment, when all she could hear was the wind rushing serenely passed her ears; the indescribable sensation of flying; James' velvety mouth; she concluded roundabout kisses were kisses of the best kind.
She let off a yelp against his lips as she felt herself wobble again, falling and bringing James with her to a crash against the tarmac below.
“Graceful,” James commented painfully on his back. “You okay?”
He checked Lily over. She was laughing uncontrollably on her side, green eyes brighter than ever, stretching as though she’d just awaken from a deep sleep. She gave a little nod to him, smiling. She could lie there forever, but remembering they’d be taking the Hogwarts Express back to school in just a few hours prompted her back to reality.
“I should be getting back...”
James stood up, readjusting his askew glasses from the fall. He looked down at her lying there-she looks like a fallen angel-and stretched out his hand for her to take.
“One more?” he asked hopefully.
Her lips quirked as she let him pull her to her feet. As they spun one final time that night, James grinned into Lily's hair, “It’ll be a pleasure working with you,” and she thought the exact same thing back, breathing him in.