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It all started innocently enough. A small white lie, a bid to save face. Who hadn’t committed such a sin? Who among us hadn’t fibbed, just a bit, to our best friend slash adopted brother whose mission in life was to irritate him beyond belief?
To err was human. To forgive, divine.
(Something his father often said when he was in trouble with his mother.)
(It never worked.)
Sirius had been on one, as usual, proselytising at length about how his relationship with Remus was so “fulfilling” and “exhilarating” and “you wouldn’t understand, Prongs, being so out of the dating loop”; a monologue delivered largely to meet the dual goals of delighting Euphemia and annoying James, goals he met with room to spare. Euphemia had made a series of cooing noises as she prepared dinner, and James had felt his blood pressure steadily rise. All in a day’s work for Sirius Black.
That was when it had slipped out. He wasn’t sure how—it was possible that he had lost consciousness for a moment—but he’d found himself telling the assembled hordes (or, his parents and Sirius) that, actually, he did have a girlfriend, thank you very much.
“You’re a fucking liar.” Sirius was smirking, that annoying expression he had when he knew full well that he was winding James up—knew full well and was enjoying every second of it. “Just admit it.”
“It’s not a lie.”
“Says the liar.”
“I’m not a fucking liar!” James lied in return.
“James,” Euphemia frowned over the top of her glasses, a standard motherly glare that he was entirely used to by now. She should have realised that it had stopped working back when he was ten years old. “Language!”
Sirius’ smirk only deepened as James let out an affronted gasp. “He swore first!”
“And if he jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?” his mum asked primly.
“Probably,” Sirius said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “He’s always been a follower, Phie.”
“Piss off,” James grumbled.
“It’s okay to not have a girlfriend,” Sirius continued blithely. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you haven’t dated anyone since Lissa—”
“I know there’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat with something like stress or embarrassment. It felt right to just double down, commit to the lie. He could worry about the repercussions later. (A classic approach to problem solving which had served him very well so far in his life.) “Doesn’t change the facts.”
“Alright,” Sirius grinned, and that was when James realised he’d been led into a trap, the kind where you plummeted down a deep, dark hole only to get mangled and your remains had to be sent to your family in several small boxes. “Great! She’ll be coming to the Christmas Eve party then?”
Well, bugger. Both Fleamont and Euphemia turned at that, their little faces lit up like children about to open their presents around the tree. He could hardly break their hearts now, could he? “Um,” he said, wisely, eyes darting briefly to Sirius’ smirking face, “yes, of course.”
“Oh, lovely,” Euphemia beamed, closing the distance between them to pinch his cheeks. “I thought you’d lost your mojo, darling, after what happened with Lissa—that woman, honestly—but this is wonderful!”
“Mojo?” James cringed, looking for help to his father, who merely shrugged with a smile. “Mum, that’s—”
“Horrifying?” Sirius supplied. “Disturbing? Borderline child abuse?”
“Yes,” James agreed. “All of the above.”
“Be that as it may,” Euphemia barrelled on. This was probably where Sirius got it from. “I’m so glad you’ve found someone, Jamie! What’s her name?”
“Um,” he said again, and could see Sirius’ stupid, smug, bastard grin grow in the corner of his eye. Panic seized him and adrenaline took over. “Lily.”
Bloody hell. Why that name, of all the possible names?
“Well, son,” Fleamont patted James’ shoulder encouragingly. “We can’t wait to meet her.”
He’d just come over for a free meal. How had he ended up in this position?
He was going to kill Sirius.
---
Lily, of course, wasn’t just an invented person: that would have been far too simple. Why create someone from scratch when you could invoke the name of your co-worker with whom you shared a constant level of flirty banter, desperately trying to hide the fact that you fancied the pants off her and had done since you’d first laid eyes on her? Much more satisfying and not at all the kind of situation that could lose you a work friend and get you in lots of trouble with HR.
And, of course, Sirius knew that Lily was a real person, too. He’d met her when James and his friends had bumped into Lily and her friends at karaoke night in the pub one evening; they’d bonded over pints of cider and tales of terrible siblings. Hell, they had even sung Don’t Go Breaking My Heart together, Sirius putting on a moving performance as Kiki Dee. That was the kind of bond you didn’t easily forget, or so his brother kept telling him.
All this meant that it wasn’t as if he could just pretend it was a different Lily. Although not exactly the rarest name in the world, it wasn’t exactly common either: you couldn’t stumble into a Tesco, shout “Lily?” and have twenty people turn around. It wasn’t a Sarah, for fuck’s sake.
So, what choice did he have but to swallow the last tiny shreds remaining of his pride, and ask Lily Evans, object of his secret affection, to pretend to be his girlfriend for a night?
There was no other choice.
It was a few days before he even had the guts to bring anything up with the woman herself, and in the end, he only did it because it was now a mere four days until Christmas Eve and it was either ask Lily, or pay someone to impersonate her, and that could get extremely messy. What if the person didn’t know the Elton John part of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart? It truly wasn’t worth the risk.
And so he had stood up, ambled over to the cubicle divider, leaned as nonchalantly as he was able, and flayed himself open for her merriment and entertainment.
“And what, exactly,” she asked now, green eyes positively sparkling with glee—he didn’t like that he gave her the chance to have such an expression. He may never hear the end of this. “Will I get out of this arrangement?”
That was ominous. “What do you mean?” he asked with a slight frown.
“Well, you get my company for the night,” she pointed out. “Which, let’s face it, is priceless. You also get a reprieve from what sounds like top level interfering from your parents, and you get to show Sirius—a close personal friend of mine—that you’re not desperately sad and alone.”
“Right…” he nodded, choosing to ignore the last part.
“So, what do I get out of it?”
Oh, she was definitely enjoying herself. He paused thoughtfully. “You mean, aside from the warm glow that comes from helping others? Goodwill towards all men, glad tidings of comfort and joy, etcetera?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Aside from that.”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on the partition between their cubicles. “There’s a free bar?”
Her smile was distracting—it always was—but he did his best to focus. “You know the way to my heart, Potter,” she replied, turning her attention back to her computer. “Fine, I’ll help you. But you owe me.”
“I expect nothing less, Evans,” he assured her, taking a moment to enjoy her smile in profile before he moved back to his own chair. “You’re a life-saver.”
It was just gratitude that he felt, pure and simple. He didn’t feel the flutter of something like hope and excitement in his stomach, like he was a teen again and not, by all accounts, a grown-up with a mortgage and a bit of a twinge in his back if he slept in a strange position.
It would be fine. One evening, with a friend, pretending to be his girlfriend. Easy.
---
They were standing outside Pret, coffees in hand, when the subject next came up again. Barely a day had passed, and James had wondered whether the whole thing had been some elaborate dream sequence—he wouldn’t put it past his subconscious, given how much he tended to see Lily in his non-waking hours—when she looked up from her drink and asked, “Is there a dress code?”
He blinked back at her (distracted, true, by the way her nose had gone pink in the cold), with an expression that could only be described as gormless. “Huh?”
“A dress code,” she said again, taking a hasty sip of her coffee. They went out for a drink most days, a desperate effort to break up the monotony or stave off frustration that came from interacting with some of their colleagues; by this point, he probably could have reeled off her order in his sleep. Oat milk flat white, as big as it came, two sweeteners. On special occasions—she was never quite clear on what constituted a special occasion, something he found embarrassingly endearing—she switched it up to a caramel latte. Last December, she had tried a Festive Fudge Mocha, declared it “essentially undrinkable” and yet finished it in five minutes flat before going back in for another one. She was a bundle of contradictions and he wished he didn’t find every single one of those contradictions as attractive as he did.
“A dress code,” she said, and added, presumably on noticing the glazed look in his eyes, “for your parents’ party?”
“Oh!” He moved with such a lack of elegance, too busy feeling relieved that he finally understood what she was talking about, that he ended up spilling some of his own drink (extra large latte, three sugars) onto his brogues. “Right! Yes, actually, it’s…you know, formalwear?”
Lily actually looked panicked, not a usual expression for her. She was, for the most part, one of the calmest people he’d ever met. “What, like suits and ties? Tuxedos?”
“I suppose so,” he confirmed, fishing his phone out of his pocket; a few moments later, he held it up, presenting a photo from last year’s party. “Here…”
“Bloody hell, Potter,” she sighed, studying the photo with care. “You look like you’ve all stepped out of a film premiere!”
James winced. “Sorry. Do you…I could buy you a dress…?”
She shot him a look. “This isn’t Pretty Woman,” she pointed out, quite unnecessarily, he felt. He was well aware of that fact. “You don’t need to buy me a dress. I’ll borrow something from my friend Mary.”
“Oh, right,” he nodded, recalling the blonde in question from their night at the pub. “Well, good. Glad that’s sorted.”
“Yes, me too,” she agreed with a playful roll of her eyes. She handed the phone back, her fingers briefly brushing his; she seemed entirely unaffected by it. Lucky her. “Before I turned up to your black-tie event in jeans and a sparkly top.”
He gave a diplomatic nod. “I’m sure you still would’ve looked great.”
She ‘hmm’ed in apparent disagreement, checking her watch. “We’d better head back, sales meeting starts in ten.”
Great. A three hour meeting, usually sitting either across from her—trying not to stare the whole time—or sitting next to her—trying not to get distracted by the soft, citrusy scent of her perfume.
And that was all just in work clothes and discussing how to make awkward editorial decisions work for a mass market.
It was possible that this party was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated.
---
She didn’t bring it up again until the 23rd, as they pulled on their coats and gathered their things at the end of the day. There was a certain joie de vivre amongst the employees—the office always closed down for the Christmas break, and only a skeleton staff had to be in on Christmas Eve at all, usually volunteers from the few who had more grinch-like tendencies and didn’t care about missing time with their families. Lily always booked the day off every year, and James did too. Well, what was the point in going in if she wasn’t going to be there anyway?
(Not that he ever used this reasoning out loud. He wasn’t stupid.)
She glanced his way as they stepped into the lift, a bright smile on her face in spite of the insanely busy day they’d all had. It was a quality he so admired in her: the ability to find the positive in just about anything. And that smile… “So I’ll see you there tomorrow?” she asked. “It starts at seven, right?”
“Right,” he confirmed. “Are you sure I can’t pick you up…?”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Lily assured him with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Mary’s going to drop me off on her way past, she’s going for dinner with some school friends.”
“That’s very accommodating of her,” he winked.
“Isn’t it,” she agreed with a smile. They stepped off the lift together, heading towards the doors and out into the cold, dark evening; they paused, as they always did, before he went left and she went right. The worst part of every day.
Even in the dim yellow light of the streetlamp nearby, he felt like he could look at her for hours. There was something about the way her eyes glittered, the way her pale skin seemed lit from within, the sort of incandescent glow which occupied far more of his thoughts that it should. She’s just a friend, he told himself, a mantra he had worn thin by now, but it was true. She wasn’t interested in him that way. Never had been and probably never would be.
Friendship was fine, anyway. He’d rather have her as a friend than as nothing at all.
She smiled up at him. His heart seemed to flutter, traitorously, in his chest. “Looking forward to seeing you in the James Bond get-up,” she said, and there was something in her voice that made him pause, just for a moment; made him wonder if there was another layer to all this. Only a moment, though, and then it was gone on the icy December wind that whipped past them. “Licence to kill?”
“Only on the dancefloor,” he joked with a grin. “See you tomorrow, Evans.”
“Tomorrow, Potter,” she winked, before turning and heading away, off towards her tube station.
He would never admit how long he stood there and watched her walk away.
---
Sirius had asked him, once, why it was that the Potters hosted a huge Christmas Eve party every year. Fleamont had long since sold Sleakeezy’s, and Euphemia had retired from her role in the Foreign Office back when James was still at school, citing “irreconcilable differences” with the incoming Conservative government. That was probably true, but James also knew that she was getting older—older than most of his friends’ parents—and it wasn’t like either of them particularly needed to work, anyway.
So, there was no need to host a blow-out party each year to keep vendors happy, or to butter up the Junior Undersecretary to the President of Who Knows Where, but the parties persisted anyway. At Sirius’ question, James’ answer had been a simple one: “they like parties.”
Every year, his mother chose a theme and committed to it in a way that would make the most devoted interior designer look half-arsed. The many spacious rooms of their home in north London were always transformed, often with such a level of thoroughness that the family would find themselves having their Christmas dinner the next day in Santa’s grotto, or a winter wonderland scene, not having had the time—or energy—to tidy up yet.
This year was no exception. Somehow (probably a combination of determination, grit and cold, hard cash), all the rooms on the ground floor had been turned into a woodland scene, complete with snow-dusted trees and remarkably lifelike model deer. His mother had managed to string up thousands of twinkling lights so that the ceiling of every room more closely resembled a sparkling night sky.
It was only as he was inspecting an ice sculpture of a woodland creature, vodka spouting from some unknown crevice, that he realised what he had done.
Lily. Was coming, here. To this ridiculous, overdone, cash-spaffing fever dream of a place.
What the hell was she going to think of him after this? That he was a trust fund twat, that he had more money than sense, that—
His thoughts spiralled like this for a surprisingly long time, as the rooms around him filled with guests, merrily chatting and laughing and drinking as if their future happiness didn’t hang in the balance. Oh, god, this was a mistake. This was a huge, insane mistake and surely one he would regret for the rest of his—
“Potter.” That familiar voice made him freeze, heart thudding painfully in his chest. “Sorry I’m late—this party looks amazing…”
James turned, unable to force himself to move with any level of decorum or calm: he practically spun round on his heel, all semblance of cool long gone. And what he saw…
It was incredible, how she could look so much like Lily and yet, hardly at all, all at the same time. That familiar smile, so warm, soft and sweet and all-encompassing, lit up her face; a face framed by the glossy waves of her dark red hair. She usually wore her hair up at work, which he didn’t mind, given it gave him an unobstructed view of the delicate column of her neck (and there was no way to admit to that without sounding like a pervert, was there?); this, though, was somehow so much better.
His gaze drifted, a mind of its own, down her body, trying to take in every detail before his brain just exploded. A midnight blue strapless dress clung to her every curve, skimming her body as it made its way down to the floor. The fabric looked like it was velvet, something that made him want to reach out, to brush his fingers against it, to find out if the heat of her body would be there in the fabric, too.
He didn’t, of course. He just about managed to drag his gaze back up to her face, to the warmth of her smile once more. “Hi,” he croaked, and cleared his throat, desperate to hold himself together. “Wow. You look—”
“Like mutton dressed as lamb?” she asked, genuine nerves showing through in her voice as she cast a critical glance down at herself. “Like a little girl who got caught playing dress-up with her mum’s clothes?”
James shook his head so fervently that he felt it might just pop clean off his neck. “I was going to say, beautiful.”
Lily looked up again, surprise clear in her eyes. Her smile faltered a little, as if the undercurrent of truth in his statement had knocked her off course. “Oh,” she said, and held his gaze. “Thank you.”
There was a pause, not as awkward as it could have been, then they both turned almost in unison to face the party. She sounded much more sure of herself when she spoke again. “So, is there anything I should know, as your pretend girlfriend?” she asked. “Make sure we pass the test?”
He hadn’t even considered that element of it—he’d been more focused on getting to spend a whole evening with her. “Good question,” he frowned.
She grinned. “As prepared as ever, Potter,” she teased. “Okay, how long have we been together?”
“Um…a month,” he decided.
She nodded in understanding. “A decent amount—enough to have invited me here, not enough for us to know every single detail of each other’s personal lives.”
“We can probably just avoid my family for most of the evening,” he guessed, “and then we won’t have to worry about anything but taste-testing all the canapes.”
“An interesting plan,” Lily remarked. “Isn’t that your brother?”
Before James could steel himself, or indeed, warn Lily of Sirius’ suspicions, the man himself had emerged from the crowd. It was an annoying but unavoidable fact that Sirius looked like he was born to wear a tuxedo: the whole bloody thing fit him like a glove, and he even managed to pull off that careless, casual undone bow tie look. James suspected that, if he tried it himself, he’d just look like he’d got distracted midway through getting dressed.
And, of course, the stylish look was finished off with one of his usual irritating grins—the one that said Prongs, I know your heart and intend to make you regret this lie as soon as is humanly possible. Or it would, if grins could talk.
“It’s Lily!” Sirius leaned in to press a kiss hello to her cheek, a move which made James feel a flash of irrational jealousy. “You look stunning, Evans.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she smiled in return. “Lovely to see you again.”
“And you,” he winked, shooting a glance at James. “I was so pleased to hear you two had finally got together!”
Uh oh. “Sirius—”
“I mean, there was only so long I could listen to him wax lyrical about how beautiful you are, and how funny, and kind, and sexy, and the only thing worth going into work for before I lost my mind completely.” Sirius sighed happily. “I’m relieved he finally got up the nerve to ask you out.”
Surely, loads of people got away with murder every day. Yes, there were lots who were caught, but there must have been just as many who were cunning enough to cover up the crime, and he could be one of those people. He had brains, he had guile, he had a vicious rage coursing through his veins with every smug word that Sirius said. Plus, Remus was a solicitor; he would help, if needed. Being Sirius’ boyfriend, he of all people would understand the need to murder him.
Lily merely smiled pleasantly back at Sirius, and reached out to slip her arm around James’ waist. “Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said. “To think, us both pining away behind our little cubicle walls.”
James could only laugh, a slightly stunned sound that almost cracked in his throat as she tucked herself neatly into his side, under his arm. He could smell her shampoo; all she had to do was tilt her chin up, just so, and he could lean down and…
“How adorable,” Sirius smirked. “Well, hey, we should go on a double date! You two, me and Rem. Wine and bonding.”
“Great idea,” Lily agreed. “I can always be convinced with wine.” She looked up at James. “Can’t I, babe?”
Babe. Babe. He was going to collapse, surely, his knees would simply give way beneath him, and how long had he been this pathetic? Was it just because he was intoxicated by the feel of her warm body pressed to his? Or would he be this way regardless? (Probably. If he was being honest.) “Right,” he nodded, and managed a surprisingly convincing smile. “You’re only human, Lil.”
He’d never called her that in his life. She was always Evans, or, in extreme circumstances, Lily. He’d once called her Lillian, although he hadn’t really known why, it had just felt right at the time and had sort of slipped out in such a way that he had to commit to it and keep calling her Lillian for the rest of the day.
But Lil? It felt altogether more intimate. The sort of name whispered across a pillow, murmured against skin.
“Adorable,” Sirius said again, and James wanted to punch the grin off his face.
He resisted. For now.
---
Two icy-cold shots of sculpture-vodka later, and James found himself guiding Lily through to the sprawling dining room in search of food. He needed to place his hand at the small of her back, to keep her from getting lost in the crowd of revellers; in many ways, it was a public service. She didn’t seem to mind, or if she did, she hid it well. They managed to not get waylaid by cheerfully drunk friends of his parents—the ones who, no matter his age, would pinch his cheeks and exclaim, “haven’t you grown!”—before they reached a long oak table laden with trays.
“Holy shit,” Lily remarked, eyes wide as she took it all in. “Are those—”
“Mini Yorkshire puddings with mini sausages and a dash of gravy?” he asked. “Yes. And they are delicious.”
“These are top tier canapes, James,” she noted, raking her gaze along the table in awe. “This is what you should’ve led with when you asked me to come, not—are those mini chicken kievs?!”
He grabbed a plate from the nearby pile and handed it over. “Come on, let’s not stand on ceremony,” he said. “Before Sirius realises he’s missed the food and hoovers it all up.”
Lily wasted no time in piling things onto her plate. “Why is it that food in miniature is so much more satisfying?” she wondered, sliding a tiny basket of fish and chips onto his plate before taking one for herself. “Look at it! It’s so cute!”
He couldn’t hold back a laugh. She was so cute. “Is it that we like feeling large and monstrous ourselves? It gives us a feeling of power that we don’t normally get to experience?”
She shot him a look, red-painted lips curled in a delicious smile. “That was a fascinating insight into your own personal insecurities,” she teased.
“Well, you’re my girlfriend,” he joked, as if the phrase didn’t send his stomach churning in a way that was both wonderful and sickening all at once. “We should be able to talk about these things, shouldn’t we?”
“Absolutely,” she agreed, leaning forward to reach for a mini spring roll. “Communication is key.”
“Yes,” he nodded, and wasn’t sure what was going through his mind when he started, “and in that vein—”
“Jamie! There you are!”
Maybe he should feel grateful. Being saved from himself. He certainly shouldn’t feel a sense of resentment as he turned to face his parents. “I’ve been here all along,” he pointed out. “Lurking in the shadows.”
Euphemia chose to ignore this comment—that was probably the easiest way to stay sane in the Potter household, in all fairness—and turned to Lily with a broad, eager smile. “You must be Lily,” she said, leaning forward for a brief hug, “it’s so lovely to meet you! We’ve heard a lot about you…”
“Mum—” James started in warning.
“All good things, of course, don’t you worry,” his mother waved a dismissive hand, her gaze still on Lily. “You are just as beautiful as he said! Goodness me, that dress—lovely!”
“She will stop fawning eventually,” his dad piped up with a friendly smile. “I’m Fleamont, James’ father.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Lily smiled in return. Somehow she didn’t seem at all phased by the ramblings of his mother. “Thank you so much for having me.”
“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” Euphemia assured her warmly. “And I’m Euphemia, but call me Phie, everyone does.”
“You have a beautiful home, Phie,” Lily said next, looking around her—the small diamonds at her ears caught the light with the movement, momentarily distracting James before he blinked and forced his gaze back to his parents. Fleamont caught the stare, though, and smiled knowingly.
“Oh, thank you, you’re so kind,” his mother replied. “It’s been our home since before James was even born. It looked a darn sight tidier back then, of course, the boy has no sense of order or control.” Euphemia shot him a fond smile before looking back at Lily. “You must know that by now, of course. Or maybe he’s not leaving his pants all over your bedroom floor yet?”
Lily laughed, a joyous, melodic sound that almost made up for the heat that spread across James’ cheeks at his mother’s words. “Bloody hell, mum,” he sighed, “must you?”
“Oh, I think I must,” she smiled in return. “Well, Lily, it’s so lovely to meet you at last, and to see James so happy—we’re very glad you’re in his life now.”
Lily tilted her chin, meeting James’ nervous gaze with a soft sort of smile, one he wanted to capture and analyse from every angle. “So am I.”
She was very good at the pretence; almost too good. He could see how easily he could fall into the illusion, lose himself in the dream—how cold, how empty normal life would feel afterwards. It was melodramatic, he knew that, but it was also the simple truth: he wasn’t sure he’d be able to come back from this.
He suddenly felt far too hot, as if his shirt collar was far too tight.
“Bit warm in here,” he said, sounding as normal as he could. He shot Lily a small, apologetic smile. “Just going to get a bit of air—I’ll be back in a sec.”
And then he ditched her, the girl of his dreams, the woman he’d dragged here to pretend to be his girlfriend, and melted into the crowd as quickly as he could.
---
Outside, a frost had settled on the ground, along with wisps of low-lying mist, giving their normally-average garden an otherworldly feel. There were a few smokers, clustered near the door, but James didn’t feel like interacting with anyone—not when he could barely get his own head straight—so he gave them a brief nod in greeting before walking briskly, as if with great purpose, further away from the light of the house and into the engulfing darkness.
About halfway down the garden, there was a curved bench, sat against the many rose bushes that were his mother’s pride and joy. In the daylight, one could sit there and take in the wild variety of colours that made up the carefully cultivated garden; at night, it didn’t hold quite the same level of interest, but at least it was peaceful. Out of the way.
He sat down, tilting his head back to gaze up at the sky. A cold and clear evening: a few stars twinkled back at him, the sort of sky that his dad used to say was all the better for spotting Father Christmas in. He’d sit out with his dad, tucked under his arm, scouring the sky for sight of that sleigh or a flash of the familiar red coat.
Far simpler times.
This was all his own fault, he knew. If he’d just said something to her sooner, not let everything build up between them so that it felt too difficult to break free from the security of their friendship…maybe she wouldn’t have said yes—probably, she wouldn’t have, if he were honest with himself—but at least he’d know. He’d be able to protect his heart.
A voice, quiet behind him. “She’s not really your girlfriend, is she?”
James looked up as Sirius sat down next to him, patting down his pockets for a cigarette. (Chances were, Euphemia had taken them off him a few hours ago—she was determined to break him of the habit, even if she had to resort to thievery to achieve it.) Sirius, for his part, didn’t look too bothered, soon giving up and rubbing his hands together for warmth instead. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s putting on a good show—seems pretty infatuated…”
James looked away again, out into the darkness of the garden. “She’s doing me a favour,” he murmured. “Because she’s a good friend.”
He could almost hear the raised eyebrow in his friend’s voice. “This is a few steps beyond just being a good friend, Prongs,” he pointed out. “I can’t think of a single person who would do this for me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because you’re you,” James replied, trying to sound more light-hearted than he felt. “Hardly anyone can bear to be in your company for that long.”
“True, they get too overawed,” Sirius agreed blithely. He paused, then gave him a nudge with his elbow. “She’s in there, still talking to our parents. When I sidled past, she was asking about what you were like as a child.”
James sighed heavily; he dreaded to think what his mother was saying to that. “Great.”
Another nudge, sharper this time. “I think you’re missing the point here, mate,” Sirius said. “Why would she be doing this? Any of this? Giving up her Christmas Eve, getting to know your family, borrowing a dress and spending the evening with—let’s face it—some of the most boring people in the Greater London area.” He paused, before adding, “present company excepted, of course.”
James turned his whole body to face his brother now, a frown sinking across his face. “What’s your point, Pads?”
Sirius had always had a flair for the dramatic: even the way he rolled his eyes in that moment was like a piece of theatre in itself. “Christ, you can be so fucking dense sometimes,” he said. “Mate—she likes you.”
His frown only deepened. “...what?”
“She likes you!” Sirius gestured behind them towards the house. “Why else would she put herself through this tedious shite? No one is that good a friend! She likes you, and you’ve left her alone in there so you can sit outside on your own feeling sorry for yourself like some pathetic, sad little—”
“Yes, alright.” James knew it was always better to cut him off before he got a head of steam going. Sirius was intelligent, creative: his insults could go on for days. “I get the picture.” He paused, glancing back to the glowing windows of his family home; they couldn’t see anyone specific from this distance, just the darkened blurry shapes of people moving around. Somewhere in there was Lily, Lily Evans, who…true, had abandoned her own Christmas Eve plans…had gone to a lot of effort to keep him company tonight…who had initiated touches, embraces, that stepped outside their usual boundaries… “You really think she likes me?”
Once again, Sirius rolled his eyes. “If she were any more obvious, she’d—well, she’d be you.”
He fell silent, trying to sort through all of this mess in his head. It was possible that the sculpture-shots were interfering with his mental capabilities; it was even more likely that Lily’s mere presence in this house, amongst his family and, well, looking the way she did, had diminished his faculties.
“If you hadn’t been winding me up,” he said eventually, casting Sirius a scathing look, “I wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.”
“Some people in life need a little push,” Sirius replied airily. “You are one of them. I wind because I care.”
James rolled his eyes. “Wish you’d find other ways to care,” he muttered.
“Come on,” Sirius gave him a nudge. “You can’t sit out here freezing your balls off all night. Get back in there and lay down some moves!”
“‘Lay down some moves’?” he repeated dubiously. “You’ve been coupled up for too long, mate.”
Sirius just smiled, annoyingly happy. “I know.”
“But I should go back in…” He stood up, apprehension bubbling in his gut. “God only knows what shite mum has said to her by now…”
Sirius stood up too, giving him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “Be bold. Be brave. Be James.”
James cracked a smile, albeit a slightly nervous one. “That last one I can do…”
---
Back inside the house, Lily was no longer standing by the canapes; it seemed likely that his parents had whisked her off to talk to some boring person or other, and another wave of guilt rippled through him. There was no way this was how she wanted to spend her Christmas Eve. He wasn’t even sure it was how he wanted to spend it, and it was his bloody family.
He wound his way through the throng of people, nodding his acknowledgement here and there to people he recognised (he couldn’t always name them, but then, it wasn’t his fault his parents had so many friends). From the outside, he thought he probably projected an air of calm, of easy nonchalance—at least, that’s what he hoped he was projecting. Inside, he felt like a lit fuse, ready to either explode in joyful sparks or fizzle out in a sad and pathetic manner.
Hopefully it would be the former.
In the living room, they had cleared most of the furniture to the side, leaving space for dancing—a mixture of jaunty classics was being piped through the stereo system. James had thought, earlier as he had helped drag the sofa out of the way, that no one would actually go near it: most of the time at these parties, the guests were too busy chatting, or drinking champagne like they feared it might run out, to even consider dancing.
“No one will dance,” he had stated, with all the unearned confidence of youth. “I guarantee it.”
“I think they will,” Fleamont had replied, just as confident and with as little to back it up as James had. “Just you see.”
Well, annoyingly, his dad had been right. Most of the people in the room were dancing (including, he noticed, his parents, looking unsurprisingly pink-cheeked from the many cocktails) and seemed to be having a whale of a time.
But, in spite of the distracting levels of frivolity and fun being had, it didn’t take long at all for James to spot Lily. He thought he’d probably be able to find her even amongst a crowd of thousands, and it wasn’t just because of her distinctive hair colour—hair colour which, incidentally, caught the glow of the clusters of candles in a way which could only be described as delightful. No, it was more than just her hair: something in her face drew him to her, over and over again, an embarrassing level of attention that she pulled out of him just with the tilt of her chin, the glint in her eyes, the way that she smiled, absent-mindedly, as she watched the dancers. She raised a champagne flute to her lips, took a long sip, and he noticed she had painted her nails—from this distance, it looked like a vibrant, glittering bronze; he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she hadn’t had nails that colour yesterday at work. He would’ve noticed.
She just had a manicure for Christmas , he told himself, an attempt at sternness which fell rather flat. It doesn’t mean anything more.
He probably should’ve been embarrassed when she suddenly met his gaze, perhaps aware of his eyes on her even from across the room, but there was something in the way her face brightened at the sight of him that chased away any sense of mortification. He matched her smile and moved round the edge of the makeshift dancefloor until he reached her side.
“I was starting to wonder if you’d run away,” she said, looking up at him with just the slightest raise of her eyebrows. “Or found someone else to be your pretend girlfriend.”
He leaned against the wall next to her. “Sorry,” he said, “just needed a quick breather.”
She studied him with a level of care he hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it had been there, all along, and he’d been so busy trying to hold himself together to notice?
Or perhaps it was wishful thinking.
Lily didn’t say anything straight away; whatever she saw on his face, she just nodded, then moved to set down her drink. He watched each movement as if it were something out of a ballet, a work of art and majesty to be revered and adored. “Shall we dance?” she suggested, turning back to him and holding out her hand.
He couldn’t stop his smile. “I’m not a great dancer,” he warned her.
She glanced, with a knowing grin, towards the dancefloor. “It’s just standing and swaying, pretty much,” she pointed out. “I’m sure even you can manage that.”
James allowed her a nod, as if he was truly going to turn down the opportunity to be close to her, and took her hand in his. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out…”
The room being crowded, they had no choice but to move into each other’s arms, his slipping around her waist while she slid one arm round his neck, resting her other hand on his chest. She fit in his arms like she should have always been there, a missing puzzle piece that had finally clicked into place. He idly wondered if she could feel the way his heart was thumping in his chest; wondered, and decided that if she did, he didn’t care. It was hard to care about much of anything when she nestled in even closer, resting her head against his chest.
“Lily,” he murmured, tilting his chin down a little, his vision blurring in the glorious red glow of her hair.
“Hmm?” Her voice was only just audible over the smooth tones of the music—Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
He swallowed. “I’m really grateful that you came tonight,” he said, words mumbled but no less true for it. He felt like he was cracking himself open, here, surrounded by people—laying himself bare and praying that it would not end in rejection and humiliation. “I know it was a mess that I could’ve easily cleaned up myself…”
He could sense her smile, even if he couldn’t see it. “That’s probably true,” she agreed softly. A pause, and she pulled back a little—a movement which he briefly hated, before realising that now he could see her face again, those beautiful, beguiling eyes… “Why did you say you had a girlfriend called Lily?”
It was now or never. He paused, an edge of nerves twisting inside him. “It just sort of…happened,” he said, which was largely true. He paused again. Be bold. Be brave. Be James. “And…it’s possible that…”
She raised an eyebrow, a soft smile playing on her lips. If he didn’t know better, he’d be sure she knew what was coming. “That what?”
He held her gaze. The room around them seemed to have melted away. “That I wish I did have a girlfriend called Lily.”
A pause; her hand at his neck moved, just slightly, her fingers slipping along the edge of his collar. It was at once both the most innocuous and the most erotic touch he’d ever experienced. Christ, he really needed to get a hold of himself. “Oh?” she asked.
In for a penny… “Not just any Lily,” he added, “if we’re being specific.”
That soft smile blossomed, a captivating sight. “Specificity is important,” she agreed. “Clears up misunderstandings.”
She hadn’t run away: that had to be a good sign. “So, I know I could’ve just admitted that I don’t really have a girlfriend,” he carried on, buoyed by her smiles and her warmth and, yes, the alcohol buzzing through his system. “But then I wouldn’t have an excuse to invite the woman I fancy the pants off of out for an evening of random Christmas nonsense.”
This time, she laughed, and her fingers carded gently through the hair at the nape of his neck. “And the woman who fancies the pants off of you wouldn’t have the excuse to say yes.”
James grinned, a ridiculous, over-the-top, all-his-Christmases-had-come-at-once grin that he felt could’ve lit up the whole room—no, the whole house—with its power. “Yeah?”
“Potter,” she sighed, with mock exasperation. “Surely you’ve noticed by now—I’m not exactly subtle.”
He drew her even closer to him, if it was possible, relishing the warmth of her pressed against him. “It’s possible that I’m much, much more stupid than I look.”
“And you look pretty daft,” she agreed.
Another grin, spilling out of him. “So…I could kiss you, now,” he wondered, “and you wouldn’t…run off? Hit me? Hate me forever?”
A further brief pause, and she rolled her eyes before closing the small distance between them—standing on her tiptoes, shouldn’t have been as adorable as it was, and muttering, “take the hint, Potter,” and pressed her lips to his.
If he’d thought the room was vanishing around them before—and he had, it had started to feel like it was only him and her left even among the crowd, everything else melting into a fine blur—then that feeling was only amplified now. The kiss was everything, everything he had thought and hoped it would be; it deepened, her hand clutching at his shirt, the other tangled in his hair; his arm tucked around her tiny waist, the other sliding up her back, skimming the bare skin on show there—he never wanted to breathe again, because that would mean stopping, and even the thought of that was utterly incomprehensible to him.
It could’ve been hours later, for all he knew—or cared—but eventually, she drew back, lips parted just a little, a glazed look in her eyes that he was certain was reflected in his own. His hand had moved, at one point, to cup her jaw, and it lingered there, his thumb brushing gently along her lower lip. “Well,” he said, and couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Well,” she echoed, and her smile strengthened.
What else was there to say? He grinned. “Merry Christmas, Lily.”
“Merry Christmas, James,” she replied, and he thought he heard Sirius’ familiar whoop in the background as they leaned in again for one more kiss.