The next evening in the Gryffindor common room, Lily Evans and Remus Lupin sat on a couch by the fire, quills in hand, parchment at the ready, two fluffy white cotton balls on the cushion between them. James Potter and Sirius Black were lying on their stomachs on the rug between the couch and the hearth playing a spirited game of exploding snap. Peter Pettigrew was reading his Care of Magical Creatures book for homework in a chair nearby. In the other two chairs that were close at hand looking at the newest issue of Glam Witch! were Dorcas Meadows and Marlene McKinnon, best friends and seventh year students. The fire and the snap cards were both popping, as the seventh years enjoyed the best spot in the common room.
"Moony, Lily, I don't see how you're doing the Potions homework already," said Sirius looking up from the game of Exploding Snap, with soot marks on his nose and cheek.
The clock on the wall struck ten. James and Lily both rose dutifully. Lily packed her things away and dropped her bag by the couch. She placed the cotton ball in her pocket.
"Well it's off to make the rounds," said James, "and maybe to take some points away from the Slytherins," he added in a whisper to Sirius with a wink.
James and Lily climbed out of the portrait hole, and began what was sure to be several boring hours of patrolling the corridors. In two and a half hours Lily and James had caught a fifth year Slytherin sneaking around (James had taken thirty-five points away for it), and had happened upon a seventh year Ravenclaw snogging his sixth year Hufflepuff girlfriend (each had lost twenty house points). They were on the seventh floor, making their way back to Gryffindor tower, when James noticed Lily smelling her Amortentia soaked cotton ball.
"So what do you smell," he asked as they stepped back through the opening concealed by the portrait of the Fat Lady, and into the common room.
"I'll tell you if you tell me," Lily said, a spark in her eye from the challenge she had laid down.
"Fair enough, I'll even go first. For every one I tell you, you have to tell me one," James said. He held his hand out for the cotton ball. James took a deep whiff of the Amortentia. He knew the each of the scents that entered his nostrils and then filled his lungs.
"Well James, what do you smell?" Lily questioned.
"I smell peppermint. You know like candy canes and those flat circle candies with the little swirlies," he answered her.
"Why?' Lily asked, as she thought of the handful of peppermint disks that were always in the pocket of her school bag.
"Nope, that's not part of the deal. Your turn," James said, handing Lily the puffy white sphere back. Lily didn't need to smell it again to answer him. She picked one of the scent that she had first identified.
"Drooble's gum... I can smell it so strongly that… that I can taste it. That's why I asked for a piece of gum after Potions yesterday."
Lily averted her eyes from James, focusing on one of the bluebell colored bubbles that seemed to always float near the ceiling in the Gryffindor common room. James swallowed hard, and in the process, swallowed the piece of Drooble's that he was currently chewing. He ran a hand through his hair nervously.
He had known from the second that he first saw Lily Evans that he would love her until the day he died. Sirius and Remus thought that he was exaggerating at eleven, but now at seventeen they believed him. It was one of those things that you just know, or at least James Potter just knew it. Lily had pushed him away for six long years, now was she finally going to realize what he had realized so long ago? After all, Amortentia didn't lie, and James was known for chewing Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, just as Lily was known for her fondness of peppermint candies.
"Um, what say we continue this tomorrow? It's awfully late," James said his voice low and uncertain. Lily nodded in agreement.
As she picked up her bag to go upstairs, she reached into the pocket on the front of her school bag. She tossed a peppermint candy towards James, as she said his name. He caught it deftly even in the low light of the common room, his reflexes and hand-eye coordination honed from years of Quidditch playing.
"Can you taste it," she asked James before he had the chance to unwrap the sweet.
He nodded his head and whispered the word yes, and then they descended their respective staircases, to ponder on what had just happened.
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