Jily oneshots

james potter did NOT steal my knickers

by twilightstargazer

James isn't actively trying to get Lily Evans to hate him, okay? He's finally gotten her to move past unimpressed dislike to somewhere around vague amusement with a 60% chance of drunken induced fondness, and he'd like to either stay there or move up the friendship scale with her.

However, he forgets to take into consideration that he's essentially a git with a lack of tact and piss poor timing which is why he has a red faced Evans staring at him, completely horrified, while Snape glares at him from the couch.

'I'll just, ah, leave this here then,' he mumbles, gently resting the Tupperware of pastry Sirius sent and then practically flinging her knickers in her general direction before hightailing out of there as fast as he could. He's banking on the fact that she's in shock right now and won't be able to follow him just so she could murder him for doing something that stupid.

(He's also banking on the fact that she's considerably shorter than him so if he legs it as quick as possible there's a good chance he can outrun her to the safety of his apartment and die on his own terms.)

It's not like he- Lily is just a notoriously unorganised person who leaves her crap anywhere and everywhere. That's all. James does not set out to find them, but he does and just holds onto it until he sees her again.

She stays over in the flat he shares with Sirius, sometimes because she's too drunk to function and likes sprawling across their couch, but mostly because she's usually too tired to go home to her own and have to do actual adult things, like making dinner and doing laundry.

Lily Evans is an actual human disaster. She hides it fairly well behind her neat little office job and closet full of pencil skirts and work shirts that he tries to never think about. It's a pretty well kept secret if he's being honest with himself. For some reason it makes him even more endeared towards her.

(Sirius says it's because he has a complex about mothering everyone to death and, well, he's not exactly wrong. He keeps spare jumpers in his car, always has Peter's allergy medication and Remus' inhaler on hand, and remembers to iron the collars of Sirius' shirts. Not to mention he actually knows how to use fabric softener unlike some people he could mention.)

Even though she spends most of her time drooling on their throw pillows and wheedling food out of them (except not really; both he and Sirius have a problem with serving sizes and always end up with more food than anticipated. Plus Sirius bakes when he's bored. Or stressed. He generally spends roughly 50% of the time puttering around their kitchen making pastries.), she never really leaves her clothes over, other than a spare sweatshirt and a pair of flip flops.

So James is understandably shocked when he finds a scrap of lace behind the dryer when he's looking for a missing sock. Very shocked. It's obvious that it belongs to Lily, because she's the only girl they have in the apartment on a regular basis. He does not need to know that Evans wears black lacy underwear beneath her too tight pencil skirts and shirts with one button too many unbuttoned. Does not. It's not helping him the slightest with this little crush he has going on.

He hastily shoves them in his pocket before resuming the search for his sock and tries his best not to think about it. It works for the most part, until Sirius ends up baking far too many cherry tarts and asks him to carry some over for her and Mary. And that's how they come to a full circle.

Sirius is waiting for him when he gets home, his face schooled into an unimpressed expression and James gives a sheepish laugh.

'Please tell me that stealing Lily's knickers is not part of some elaborate scheme to get her to go out with you,' he says, cutting to the chase.