Potter and Evans

Aftermath

Lily opened her eyes a crack. Only just enough to notice she had drawn the curtains around her bed - something she never did because it made her feel claustrophobic. She closed her eyes again, still feeling sleepy. The sound of Mary's snoring told her it was still too early to get up anyway.

...but was that Mary? Her snores weren't that loud...and...there were two people snoring. And Mary was the only one that snored.

Lily rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes so that she could better assess what was going on...and she was sure she felt her heart physically stop...this...this was not her bed.

The dead giveaway should've been the duvet cover...but it wasn't...it was the smell...this was the smell from her Amortentia...the indistinguible scent of...of James..? But how-

Then it all came rushing back. The Slug Club. The Ravenclaw. Drunk Sirius. Putting drunk Sirius to sleep on the sofa. Singing to drunk Sirius. Falling asleep on the sofa. Falling asleep on the sofa with her head resting on James...

...so if she was in James' bed...where was James sleeping? ...and if he knew how to sneak into the girls' dormortries, why hadn't he taken her there? She had to admit, it was a pretty nice gesture allowing her to-

She sat bold upright, but James was not next to her. A relief; but she had learnt James wouldn't do something weird like that. She felt guilty for doubting him like.

As she swung her legs over the side of the bed and drew the curtains quietly aside, she noticed she was still wearing her green dress, but no shoes. She settled her bare feet onto the wooden floorboards, and saw through the window that the sun had only just begun to rise.

"Good." she thought, this meant she still had time to sneak into her own bed.

Outside she could see that the sun was only just rising, iridescent pink, yellow, and orange light shone into the room, engulfing everything in it, including her silver heels that she now saw were neatly nested under the bed. She almost slid them on, but figured a clip cop, clip clop as she walked through the bys dormerties would draw unwanted attention.

The door had been left perculairily propped open, and Lily easily slid through the gap.

'Lily!' Marlene yelped, leaping up from the sofa and rushing over to her the second Lily had thought she had unsuccessfully made to the common room unnoticed. 'What's going on?'

Lily furied her eyebrows, blushing, and trying to act confused, 'What do you...what do you mean?'

Marlene tried and failed to hold back a laugh. 'Lily. Sweetie. Do you not realise how strange you look sneaking out of the boys dorms looking like that when the sun has barely risen?' She raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together, but quickly broke back into a beaming grin, her eyes micheaviously dancing.

'No, it's not-I-Marlene!' Lily whined

'You did say that-' Lily stood on Marlene's foot hard, knowing what she was about to bring up. 'OUCH! Calm down! There's no one here to hear me say that you told me back at Hogsmeade that you like James.'

Lily went quiet at this. Marlene had conveniently not brought this up very much - which largely surprised her really. She had been all over the idea of Lily and James getting together for years.

'Kidding!' Marlene held her hands up in surrender at Lily's lack of response, and the girls began towards their own dorms. 'Sirius told me what happened by the way.'

'Sirius told you what happened?' Lily asked, surprise accidentally playing in her voice.

'Yeah.' Marlene said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'There was some kind of argument at the Slug Club. Sirius walked you back while James sorted the Ravenclaw guy out. Then James followed you back to the common room and the three of you sat talking till you passed out: and James couldn't get past the girls stairs, so...well you know what happened. He let you sleep in his bed.'