He loved her. They had been on three dates, and he loved her. He was afraid to tell her, afraid she would laugh at him, afraid she would slap him across the face.
Afraid of losing her.
Seven years. It has taken seven years to woo her. He had chased her since he was eleven, he was seventeen now. She had finally given into him a month ago.
One blissful month that more than made up for seven years without her.
It was summer. All the N.E.W.T. exams were over. The Leaving Ceremony was to take place the next day. It was the end of their Hogwarts careers, and the beginning of the rest of their lives.
He set up a picnic by the lake, under his favorite tree - a cloth in Gryffindor red, lasagna (her favorite food), a plate of succulent strawberries, a golden bowl filled with creamy Nutella. She was going to be there soon. He stood impatiently near the cloth, a white lily clutched in his hands.
He saw her in the distance. He smiled; the mere sight of her inspired it.
But, something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
She did not return his greeting. She seemed icy, cold. She was walking with a purpose, her hips swaying temptingly. Her eyes were shiny. She strode up to him, yanked the lily out of his hands, and stepped on it, crushing the fragile bloom underneath her small foot.
She slapped him, the cold crack echoing, contrasting sharply with the warm Hogwarts grounds. He touched his cheek; there would be a red mark there later.
"Lily, what's going on?" he whispered.
"I know what you've been doing," she responded confidently. "James, we're through."
"So, that's it?" he asked, utterly confused, not wanting to believe it, praying it was a cruel joke.
"Yes," she said firmly, spinning around. She walked away from him, feeling his hurt, baffled stare bore through her back.
Straight to her heart.
If he had been able to see her face, he would have seen her furiously wipe away a tear.
………………………………………………………………………..
"What the hell are you doing here?" Lily exclaimed, taking care to keep her voice down. "How did you find me?"
James shushed her, "Moody sent me. I'm here to protect you."
He still had a firm hand on her waist. It hadn't been hard to find Lily. He had known she would be in Montmartre, a blond, dressed in jeans and a white tank top. But even without that information, James would have been able to find Lily.
Something inexplicable had steered him to this little street in Paris. James had observed the blond from a distance, stealthily following her for about a minute. He would have recognized Lily's body anywhere - the feminine curves, the toned arms. When she stopped at the crêpe vendor, and ordered the crêpe with the Nutella and the bananas, James was certain.
He stopped her at the next opportunity.
"Potter," she hissed, "I don't need protection. Especially not from you. Moody knows that!"
"Yes, you do!" James insisted angrily. "Don't make me do this the hard way."
"The hard way," Lily repeated skeptically. "Which would be?"
"Stun you," answered James. "I'd much rather you came willingly."
Lily's eyes narrowed behind her sunglasses. "How do I know you're not working for him?"
Not sure which him, she was referring to, James muttered a password. "I'm here to guard the red hen's eggs."
James kept an arm firmly around Lily's waist. He pushed slightly, forcing her to take a few steps forward. They walked. James steered her down the street.
"I still don't trust you, Potter," Lily declared. "I don't need your help."
"It seems that you've got a crazed Death Eater after you, and you need to get rid of him. Usually, that requires help of some sort. I'm, of course, just speculating, here," James responded sarcastically.
"Where are you taking me?" Lily asked.
"It's classified," James answered.
"Potter, what's wrong with you?" Lily said, adjusting her sunglasses. "I have the right to know where you're taking me!"
"No, you don't," James said.
"Yes, I do," Lily argued.
"If you get captured on the way there," James explained, "Its location could be tortured out of you, and we would lose a safe house."
She had always hated it when he was right. He would smirk at her with that annoying grin of his. But lately, it seemed that even the grin wasn't so bad.
All right, so she adored the grin. It was more than that. He had grown up quite a bit. It was the little things that made his maturation obvious - the way he didn't muss his hair as much, his seriousness as Head Boy, his stricter Quidditch practices, how he stood up for the first years instead of pranking them…the way he had only asked her on a date once this year.
Something was fundamentally different about James Potter in his seventh year.
Frustration hit Lily Evans like a battering ram. Perhaps, that was why she asked him to Hogsmeade.
Or perhaps, she simply wanted him to grin at her again.
……………………………………………………….
They had arrived in a narrow alleyway, hidden from the street. James pulled an old rubber glove out of his pocket.
"Portkey," he muttered.
Lily nodded. She placed a finger on it, hating that she had no idea where she was going to end up.
"I hate this," she commented. "Can't we just Apparate?"
James rolled his eyes.
"Don't be so condescending!" Lily snapped.
"I wasn't being condescending!" James responded acidly.
"You rolled your eyes at me," Lily pointed out.
"It was an unconscious action," James protested.
Lily snorted. "It looked quite conscious to me!"
"It's not my fault you had to make a ridiculous comment. How can you Apparate if you have no idea where you're going?"
"Very easily."
James looked impressed. "Where'd you bloody learn how to do that?"
Lily was saved from responding by a sharp hook at her waist. They were spinning into oblivion. She landed with a thump in another secluded alleyway. James was next to her, looking at a bit of parchment.
"All right, we have to rent a car," he said.
"A car?" Lily repeated, surprised.
"Yes," James responded dryly, "A metal thing with an engine, and four wheels. Muggles use it to go places."
"And you're back to being condescending," she sniped.
"And you're back to being a bitch," James shot back.
Lily sniffed. "Under these circumstances? It's understandable."
"What, is it that time of the month?"
"Bastard!"
………………………………………
They had bickered all the way to the car-rental.
"Can you even drive?" Lily said angrily, her green eyes flashing.
"Would you shut up? We're supposed to be newlyweds!" James said.
She gave him a sickly sweet smile, and took his hand. A shock of electricity pulsed through him at the slight contact.
It was still there. That spark. He watched her walk away from him, on the train platform.
The pain from the break was still sharp. It jabbed at his heart. But that fire, that electricity, it was still there.
And he would never see her again.
They walked into the car-rental, still holding hands.
"Bonjour," James greeted the woman behind the counter.
His French was rough and awkward. The woman winced.
Lily took over, and requested a car in perfect French. The transaction went smoothly. They left, and James took the keys from her. The car was a trendy sports car; it only had room for two. She glared at him, and sat down in the passenger seat. James started the car. He slipped off his jacket and tossed it into the insignificant backseat. The engine hummed merrily. He pressed the button for the radio, and flipped through the stations.
"It's all in bloody French," James said irritably.
"We are still in France, aren't we?" Lily said sarcastically. "Actually, I'm not the one to talk. I have no idea where we are."
"La Rochelle, by the Bay of Biscay," James informed her. "The house is about two hours away from here, in the Loire Valley."
"Why couldn't we just Portkey?"
"Wards. No one can enter the home and the land surrounding it through magical means," James explained.
An awkward silence encompassed the two of them. Ironically, Edie Piaf's La Vie en Rose played over the radio. Lily changed the station.
"I was listening to that!" James exclaimed.
Lily scoffed, "You can't even understand it!"
"I like the melody," James argued.
"I don't care! I don't like it, and that's what matters!" Lily said selfishly.
"Yes, because you're the victim," James responded dryly.
"I am!" Lily protested. "I'm the one with a crazed Death Eater after me!"
"And I'm the one who has to deal with you until they catch that crazy Death Eater!"
"Because, I'm that horrible. At least I'm not a liar, a cheater, an insufferable prat, cocky, arrogant-"
"Need a thesaurus, Evans?"
"-plotting, aggravating, delinquent, worthless, deceitful, guileful, and all around piece of pond scum!"
"I prefer to think of myself as debonair and devastatingly handsome, but your list will do just fine, Evans. Thank you."
James understood Lily Evans well enough to know that the best way to irk her was ignore her, treat her like she meant nothing. He was also still bitter enough to resort to such tactics. He was also still in love enough to counteract the bitterness.
Silence consumed the car again. Lily yawned. She hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours. James sympathized. He handed her his jacket.
"I don't need it," she muttered, pushing it away.
"You never could sleep without a blanket," James said gruffly. "This is the best I've got for right now."
Lily's startlingly green eyes widened in shock. She took the jacket, ignoring slight pang of remembrance. Lily stretched in the small seat. James looked over at her, and then looked away quickly.
He knew her body better than he knew his own - the tiny mole on her right shoulder blade, her legs, long in proportion to her small body, her soft stomach, her curvy hips. She was soft, she was beautiful, and for the moment, she was his. He could tell her from her soft mews of pleasure that he was the only one who knew her so intimately; he hoped remain the only one. His hard body pressed her into the mattress. She sighed against his weight.
James could feel himself growing hard, as she curled up into his jacket. He was still attracted to her. James found this rather annoying, as witness protection became much more difficult when he had a permanent erection. Lily was beautiful, even as a blond. He considered this - he missed her red hair. Her hair had been gorgeous. It had fallen to her mid-back, straight as a pin. There had been an infinite amount of colors in it; no two strands were alike. This new monotonic blonde was so unlike her. Sirius would have been pleased - he has a blond fetish. James, on the other hand, loved red hair, and he especially loved it on Lily Evans.
……………………………………….
He woke her as they neared the house.
She looked around herself groggily. "What? What's going on?"
"We're almost to the safe house," James said. "You must remove any Charms you've placed on yourself. Once we're inside a fifty-yard radius of the house, all magic becomes null."
"Null?"
"We won't be able to use any magic," James explained. "And it's painful, but as soon as we enter the border around the house, all magic you've used on yourself is removed. All Glamour Charms, Polyjuice Potion, etc. Healing Potions and such do work."
Lily nodded and took out her wand. "Finite Incantatem."
Her hair turned straightened and turned red. Her purse became an Invisibility Cloak, and he could hear coins jingling beneath it.
"You transfigured an Invisibility Cloak?" he asked, impressed.
She nodded, and yawned. "It's not as hard as they make it out to be."
"Still, that's advanced magic!"
"Why are you so surprised, Potter? What do you think I've been doing for the past four years? I am not some helpless damsel-in-distress!" Lily said, frustrated.
James rolled his eyes. "You still can't take a compliment!"
"You're back to being condescending," Lily announced.
James rolled his eyes again. Lily curled back up in her seat, obviously miffed. She glared silently out the window. He stared stonily through the windshield. James pulled into the driveway, and turned the car off. She wordlessly handed him his jacket, and got out of the car, holding her Cloak in a bundle. James stalked out of the car, slamming his door shut.
The house was small, surrounded by green grass. There were a few flowers planted near the front door. The grounds were large and forested. A narrow dirt road had led up to the house. James could sense the blurry edges of the wards in the distance. He opened the brown door, and walked in. Lily trailed behind him.
There was a kitchenette, and a living/dining room with a fireplace. A comfortable couch and chairs decorated the small space. A fire crackled merrily, despite the sun outside. There weren't that many windows. Lily opened another door; it was the bathroom. A bedroom was off to one side.
Lily wandered into it. There was a large wardrobe and a full-sized bed. She opened the wardrobe. It was stocked with Muggle clothes. She pulled out a tank top and held it up. It was her size.
"Thank God," she murmured, relieved to finally have a change of clothes.
James walked in. "Lily?"
"What?" she called sharply.
"Don't bite my bloody head off," James said, "I was just making certain you found your clothes. This will be your room."
"I gathered that," Lily said. "Did you need anything else?"
"You're the one being condescending now," James teased.
"Oh, shut up, Potter!"
James laughed.
"And, I get the shower first," Lily added.
James winked. "Can I join you?"
"Potter!" Lily shrieked. "Get out!"
She pushed him, and he took the hint. James heard the door slam behind him, and a few moments later, the shower came on. He had half-wanted her to take him up on his offer.
She emerged from the bath. Her dressing down had come undone, and he could see rivulets of water traveling down the valley between her breasts. He had never been so jealous of a water droplet in his entire life.
James wanted to be the water, caressing her, soothing her. Disgusted with himself, he repeated one of the Auror's commandments:
An Auror never lusts after those he is supposed to protect.
James had never thought this would be a problem; usually, his witnesses were escaped male Death Eaters, children, mothers of Death Eaters, etc. He tried to focus himself on the task ahead - keeping one Lily Evans alive.
……………………………………………….
Lily stripped off her clothes and turned on the water. She waited for it to warm up before stepping in. There was shampoo and conditioner, soap waiting for her. Lily wanted to scrub away the memories of the past few days. Dirt flowed from her body. She let the hot water soothe her aching, tired muscles.
She sighed.
Lily massaged shampoo in her hair, trying not to think of James.
He had always loved playing with her hair. Even when they were first years, he would tug on one of her plaits, run his fingers through it. Now, as seventh years, his play had become different - less innocent. He looked for ways to touch it.
As she lay on her stomach, reading, he sat down next to her on her bed.
"Lily," he murmured affectionately.
Distracted by her book, she made a noise of recognition. He laughed at her. He leaned down and slowly began to massage her back, in slow, tantalizing motions. She smiled into her book. He ran his fingers through her hair; she arched into his touch like a cat.
He grinned devilishly, and tossed her book aside. Lily flipped over onto her back, his hands still entangled in her hair. He kissed her happily.
Lily wrenched herself out of memories. She couldn't still be attracted to James; it just wasn't possible, after his betrayal. As she remembered that, pain cut through her, sharp, biting. What he had done had been so horrible - it had torn her in two.
She thought she had done a good job of hiding her feelings after that. He never suspected that she had gone to her chambers and cried for him. He never suspected that she loved him.
That she still loved him.