All Right, Evans?

Chapter 32: Easy Come, Complicated Go

Friday, 9:48 P.M.

James rolled over the back of the couch and landed face-down in Lily's lap. It was the end of the week, he was exhausted, and the past five days had led him to a very important life decision.

"I quit," he declared, his voice muffled by Lily's skirt.

"What do you quit, love?" Lily asked, feigning sympathy as she ran comforting fingers through his dark hair.

"Everything." James turned his head so he was facing her stomach and she could hear him better. "I quit Head Boy, I quit Quidditch captain, I quit Hogwarts in general."

Lily rolled her eyes but continued dancing her fingers over him, through his hair, down the side of his face, over his neck to his shoulder and back into his hair again. "We've had one prefects' meeting, you haven't even held try-outs yet, and we've barely done anything in lessons thus far," she reminded him. "You're not quitting anything."

"But Evaaaaaaans..." James pouted and wrapped an arm around her waist. "The prefects are smarmy little blighters, all of them except Remus, and I s'pose Fenwick's all right, too, but still. And I'm never going to find Chasers like Cam and Frank, or a Keeper like Joyce, because everyone in Gryffindor's a right idiot who wouldn't know a Quaffle from a Snitch –"

"That is so fantastically untrue and you know it," Lily said, but James wasn't listening.

"– and lessons are going to be a right pain this year," he went on, and Lily tried not to smile at the blatant whining tone to his voice. "N.E.W.T. year and all that. It's all too much and you're the only one who can fix it. I want to quit, please, won't you let me?" He stared at her imploringly, his eyes wide and his mouth still pouting.

Lily raised an eyebrow at him. "Begging looks so unbecoming on you," she informed him dryly, "and I absolutely cannot fix it the way you'd like me to. Stop worrying so much; your paranoia is suffocating."

She smiled to warm him up a bit and went on, "James, you'll do wonderfully in exams, you wretchedly clever boy, and I'm sure you'll find three people who can ride a broomstick straight. As for the prefects, well, I can't do anything about them and I think you're overreacting, anyway."

"Hmmph." James kept his eyes on his fingers, which were kneading Lily's waist, pushing the material of her blouse back and forth. He knew she was right, but the week had been dreadful as he tried to acclimate to everything that was so – so new, and it was all so bittersweet at times that he was having a hard time dealing with it. He was worried about the Quidditch try-outs he'd scheduled for tomorrow, completely clueless about being Head Boy, and he wasn't really worried about N.E.W.T.s, but...

Well, he hadn't been nervous about them until the day before when McGonagall told him and Sirius off for making their salamanders tap-dance instead of Transfiguring them into sets of matches. She'd been her usual stern and steely self, telling them that they won't find it so funny when their examiners docked points for their obvious and frowned-upon candidness. Sirius had shrugged it off, but James found himself feeling a little ashamed, because he was Head Boy and he wanted to prove he'd earned that, but those things themselves were still taking some getting used to.

It wasn't all bad, though, James reminded himself as Lily's hands continued to soothe him. He was sure that he'd never get used to her, to having Lily Evans, to Lily Evans having him, but that was one thing he didn't want to get used to, anyway. He was continually shocked whenever he'd take her hand and drag her along to classes or meals, and all she did was roll her eyes and laugh instead of calling him a tosser and hexing him. In any case, he much preferred this perpetual state of wonder; it allowed him to appreciate her properly, and he never, ever wanted to take her for granted.