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munarlothhp · 7 years ago

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The Witching Hour

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evanslilyy: jily headcannon that they both totally slept in the same bed “platonically” for a few months before they actually ended up getting together in seventh year because they were both suffering from nightmares/insomnia as a result of the oncoming war and slowly realised how much they actually cared about one another when they were lying in bed talking about the most random and ridiculous things at 3am in james’ four-poster

“Alright, Evans?”

Lily started, whipping around towards the boys’ stairs. There stood, of course, James Potter.

“Couldn’t sleep. What time is it?”

“Half gone three.”

“What’re you still doing up then?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” He shrugged. He crossed the common room to join her on the couch. They settled back into the cushions, shoulders barely touching, and stared into the dying embers in the fireplace. They had become friends again last year when term started new after that horrible thing with Snape. James really hadn’t been that bad before but he’d definitely shaped up over the last year, and Lily found herself seeking his company more and more as they neared the end of their time inside the castle’s safe walls.

“Bad dreams?”

She pulled on the end of the braid falling over her collarbone. “Sometimes.”

“Me too.” He curled onto his side, crossing his legs so his knees were pressing either end of her right thigh. He reached out and twisted the end of the braid around his finger. “I’ve never seen you wear braids before.”

“I only wear them to bed.” She shifted to face him more solidly, sweeping the braid back over her shoulder. “Petunia used to call me Pippi Longstocking.”

His brow furrowed, his hand falling into his lap. “What’s Pippi Longstocking?”

“Erm, a muggle book character. She has red braids and is super strong and some people in her stories think she’s very odd. Petunia said she must be a freak like me.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak.”

“You hang out with Sirius, your opinion doesn’t count.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She grinned, looking down at his knees pressing close again. “Clearly you have no taste.”

“I won’t tell him you said that.”

“For my benefit, I suppose,” She snorted.

“Duh. If he knew how you really felt, he wouldn’t ask to copy your homework anymore.”

“Oh gee, then what reason would even I have to do it in the first place?”

“Exactly my point, I’m doing you a favor.”

She laughed once and settled deeper into the cushion, trying to press her shoulder until she could feel the back of the couch unyielding under her bones. “Do you come down at night a lot?”

He shook his head. “Nah. The house elves come ‘round at night - they don’t show up when anyone’s in here and I wouldn’t want to cause them to rush or anything.”

She shot up straight, looking around the room. Curling parchment ends, broken quills, and discarded books littered most surfaces, and more than a few cushions were upended. “Fuck, I hadn’t thought of that, I’m down here late all the time!”

“I’ve noticed.” Her eyebrows rose and he might’ve blushed, just a little bit. “Map.”

“Oh, right. I still can’t believe you all made that and still can’t beat me in Charms.”

“I prefer to focus my attention on worthwhile magic that I’ll actually use one day.

“You sound like a kid talking about algebra.”

“What’s algebra?”

“Nevermind - thanks for letting me use the map for rounds, by the way.”

“No problem, I know you won’t lose it. So...why do you come down here, anyway?”

“I don’t want to wake anybody else up.” She waved a hand towards the girls’ stairs. “They get grumpy if they get woken up. And when I can’t sleep I can’t just lay there, you know? It feels like such a waste of time.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean. I read a lot, when I can’t sleep.”

“That works for me sometimes. Sometimes, I just - I just really need a cig, you know? To help me settle down. But I open the window for the smoke and somebody always wakes up.”

“You know, you could come up to our dorm, if you want - when you can’t sleep. Usually somebody’s up if it’s before 3, and everybody sleeps like the dead anyway. You can get away with anything.”

She glanced away to the fireplace and back, reaching for her braid again. “I wouldn’t want to wake you up.”

“You wouldn’t. It’s ok.” He didn’t usually look that determined off the quidditch pitch, and she considered taking him seriously.

“Ok. Thanks.”

He nodded, then grinned and flicked her knee. “What are friends for?”

She smiled and they were silent, half leaning into the couch and maybe, possibly, leaning closer to each other. Their knees brushed and she let them settle for a moment, then stood up. “We should get up to bed. House elves, you know.”

“Right. See you at breakfast?”

“Yeah. Night, Potter.”

“G’night Evans.”

Less than a week later, Lily was again tossing and turning behind her scarlet bed hangings long after midnight. It had been a Double Potions day, and the looks she caught Snape throwing at her from across the dungeon made her skin crawl. It had been easy enough to ignore them when they were still friends but they seemed to have intensified since fifth year. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was never without the company of his slimy Slytherin friends anymore and Lily just knew where they were all headed after school ended in June.

Someone started snoring across the dorm and she flopped onto her stomach, huffing into her pillow. That was it - she had to get up. She almost gave up when it took more than a few moments to disentangle her legs from the blankets but she was soon out the door, feet shoved into her trainers and a dressing gown tied tight around her middle.

Several loud pops echoed up from the common room as she scuffed down the stairs and a scrap piece of parchment was still floating down to the floor when she reached the bottom. She bit her lip and hurried across the room - the sooner she was up in the 7th year boys’ room, the sooner the elves could get back to work. Upstairs, she hadn’t even gotten close enough to knock when the door was wrenched open from the inside. James practically glowed, his hair sticking up in every direction and the quaffles on his pajama pants zooming around like mad.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

She stopped just short of running into him, grinning at his magical pajamas. “Nope. You?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been in and out.”

Her brows wrinkled in the middle and she reached for a braid. “Oh, no, did I wake you up? I’m sorry, I’ll go back --” She turned back to the stairs but he grabbed her hand.

“Evans. Stay.” He had that hard look again.

She blinked, nodded, and followed him into the room. That was how it started.

“Did you understand Transfiguration today?”

Lily felt James nod against the pillow. “Did you need help with something?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to review the theory. I’ll let you know.”

“You know you can always come to me, Evans.”

She could hear the smug grin on his face and she rolled her eyes, smacking him in the ribs. “You’ve got something coming your way if you keep this up, that’s for sure.”

As if on cue, a pillow sailed across the room straight into James’s face. Lily curled into a ball and snickered as he flung it back into Remus’s bed and shoved her towards the edge of his own. “Fuck off, Moony.”

“Evans is right, you had it coming.”

“The only thing he’s got coming tonight,” Lily muttered, repositioning herself closer to the middle of the bed.

“Evans! Language!”

Lily stuck her tongue out at James and took his pillow, doubling up on the one behind her own head and lounging comfortably. He rolled his eyes and laid down, angling to take up the pillow space directly between her shoulder and ear while keeping their bodies separate from the shoulders down. They pulled up the covers and, somehow, were soon asleep.

She had been coming up to the boys’ dorm at least 3 nights a week for the last 3 weeks, and had gotten quite used to getting comfortable wherever she ended up. James wasn’t always awake when she showed up, but Sirius and Remus both proved good sports about sharing quilts. Lily had found that it was easier to fall asleep next to somebody else, anybody, really, and the boys seemed to understand that better than her own roommates.

“You’d better get in here quick, Evans, it’s still the witching hour.” It was Sirius answering the door tonight, Lily’s third night in a row. “Who knows what might happen to you out wandering the tower after midnight!”

“I’m literally a witch, Black.”

“I knew it!” She rolled her eyes and he ushered her into the room, grinning. “Prongs fell asleep on his Charms essay about half an hour ago.”

“I hope he wakes up with it printed back all over his cheek.”

Sure enough, James was fast asleep on his stomach with his head pillowed on his Charms book at the foot of the bed and his feet sprawled across his pillows at the head. His ink bottle was precariously close to tipping over on the quilt, and his glasses, still on his face, were almost definitely bent. He was drooling slightly, leaving a damp spot on the page underneath his chin.

“Oh God,” Lily snickered, covering her mouth with her fist. “I wish we had a camera!”

“Oh shit, wait! I have one here somewhere!” Sirius rummaged frantically through his trunk, eventually reappearing with a polaroid camera in hand. “We picked this up in muggle London over the summer, I completely forgot. Here, do you know how to work this thing?”

Lily took the camera, popped up the flash, and quickly snapped a picture. She snatched the photo as it spit out and handed it to Sirius. “Here, wave this around.” She set the camera down on the bed and eased James’s glasses off of his face, placing them and the ink bottle on the nightstand before he could roll over and do any real damage.

“Why am I doing this?” Sirius sat cross-legged on his bed, fanning himself with the photograph.

“Well, it’s - it’s supposed to help, isn’t it?”

“I dunno, you’re the muggle.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s your camera, haven’t you ever used it before?”

He shook his head. “We got it to bring back to school and then forgot, I guess. Thanks for reminding me though.”

“Sure.” She joined him on the bed, kicking off her trainers and scooting towards the middle of the bed. He pulled out a carton of cigarettes, lit one with one hand, passed it to her, and lit his own from the glow near her chin.They were the only ones awake, and Remus and Peter both had their hangings pulled shut, and they kept their voices low. “Thanks. Have they been out long?”

“Since before midnight. Moony’s been tired and crabby lately, and Pete’s still got that cough. He put a silencing charm on his curtains when he shut them.”

“Nice of him.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Sirius reclined, pillowing his head on the outside of Lily’s thigh and blowing a stream of smoke up into the canopy above. “How long am I supposed to wave this for?”

“Here, let me see it.” The square was almost clear, a perfectly still muggle photo of James sprawled over his covers like a newborn giraffe. Lily muffled a laugh behind her hand and showed Sirius the picture.

“That’s so weird. That it doesn’t move, you know?”

“I guess, if you’re not used to it. Imagine how I felt my first night in the castle when all of the paintings talked. I thought I was going mad!”

“Don’t blame the paintings.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He grinned up at her and she rolled her eyes. He quieted and looked back at the photo for a few minutes. “I think we’re going to get a flat after school ends.”

“Can you afford that?”

“Neither of us are exactly hurting for money, Evans. Besides, my uncle left me a flat in London when he died.”

“So when you say you’re ‘getting a flat’, you mean that you’re just going to fuck about in London until Mrs. Potter puts up enough of a fight to make you both get jobs?” She stroked his hair, combing it out over her knee with her fingers.

“Basically. And anyway, there’s always the Order.”

“Do you think you’ll definitely join?”

“Won’t you?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. With my mum, you know--”

He sat up on one elbow, knocking her hand aside and spilling ash from his cigarette onto the quilt. “What do you mean? What else are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? I mean, I wanted to go into spell development at the Ministry, but at this point is there even going to be a Ministry by the time we finish our N.E.W.T.s? And if that’s how things are going at that point, I have to make sure that I’m taking care of my family. That might mean going back to the Muggle world for a while.”

“You can’t do that, you’re a witch!”

“Not if you ask them. Mudblood, remember?”

His brow furrowed and she looked away, rolling her cigarette between her thumb and forefinger. “You shouldn’t call yourself that.”

“Why not? Everybody else does.”

“Evans.”

“It’s fine,” She shrugged.

“Is not.”

“Is too. I’m serious.”

“No, I’m Sirius.”

She snorted and looked up, relieved to see that he was grinning. “Anyway - yeah, I dunno what I’m doing after school yet. We’ll just have to see...how things are, then.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to come in with us. I’ve got spare bedrooms.” He laid back down across her knee and she took a long drag of her smoke.

“Thanks, Sirius.”

“You probably couldn’t sleep without us anymore, anyway.”

“You know, that might actually be true.”

They were quiet, her playing with his hair and him looking at the picture of his closest brother. She tried distracting him from the heaviness in the air with a smoke ring contest, and it almost worked.

“We should go to bed,” His voice vibrated through her leg. They stubbed out their smokes in an ashtray on his nightstand and climbed into bed, Sirius waving his wand to extinguish the last lamps.

When Lily woke with a start hours later, green flashes dancing behind her eyelids, Sirius pulled her down, cushioning her head as best he could on his bony shoulder. Snapping her hair tie around his own wrist, he slowly pulled her braid out and rubbed her back as she drifted back to sleep.

Lily was awake and ready when 3 of the 4 Marauders spilled into their dorm with barely enough time for a nap before breakfast. They didn’t look surprised to see her, but they looked so exhausted that she wasn’t sure if they were even capable of surprise at the moment. She, too, had been up all night, but she didn’t think that her evening had left her half as exhausted as theirs had them.

“I have Pepper Up potions.”

“Lily, you’re a goddess.” Peter accepted a flask gratefully before disappearing into the showers.

She smiled at him, then turned to see the other two boys already almost asleep on their own beds. “No! Get up! You have to bathe before breakfast, you’re all filthy!”

“Bugger off, Evans,” James barely got out through the pillow his face was pressed into, waving an arm half-heartedly in her direction.

She stomped to his bed and yanked the covers off before turning and doing the same to Sirius. “Up!”

“What the fuck !?”

“We have Double Transfiguration first thing this morning,” Lily crossed her arms and glared back and forth between the two boys. “I can’t cover for all of you if you don’t show up. Remus is the only one with an excuse, unless you want to explain to Professor McGonagall where you’ve been all night.”

They both only groaned in response, and Sirius was the first to rise, dropping a kiss to Lily’s temple as he passed. She pressed a flask into his hand and pushed him in the direction of the shower. James sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes and knocking his glasses askew. His hair was standing up in every direction and there were twigs and leaves tangled in the top. Lily sighed and pulled him to the edge of the bed, standing in front of him and slowly picking the bits out of his tangled mop.

“It wouldn’t be this bad if you would quit rubbing all over every tree you pass.”

“I can’t help it when they itch,” he grumbled.

“Is Remus in the hospital wing?”

He nodded, knocking a twig loose onto the floor. “We put him to bed and scampered before Pomfrey could say anything.”

“How is he?”

“Not too banged up. Tired, mostly.”

“I’ll duplicate my notes for him after class. I also left my Charms question set in your bag for you to copy before this afternoon, just make sure to get it back to me at lunch.”

“Oh shit, I forgot all about that.”

“I know.” She pulled the last leaf from his hair and waved her wand, Vanishing the small pile of rubbish. He smiled and reached out, touching her elbow softly.

“Thanks, Evans.”

“You’re welcome, Potter.” She ignored the warm feeling in her gut from his gratefulness and handed him a flask, waiting to make sure he drank all of it before gathering her things. “Shampoo twice. I’ll save you some coffee at breakfast.”

“I’m so fucking tired.”

“Me, too.”

Lily unwrapped another chocolate frog and flicked the Dumbledore card into James’s lap. “Do you think this will actually work?”

“Guess we’ll see.”

Lily had just read that morning in Witch Weekly that eating before bed, especially sweets, could induce some seriously weird dreams. She and James already both had regular nightmares that left them sweating and shaky, so they agreed that they’d take weird over realistic and terrifying any night of the week. At any rate it didn’t seem like it’d hurt to try, though Lily thought she might change her mind after the stomach ache set in.

“So, I have a question,” James got out around a mouthful of chocolate.

“Shoot.”

“What’s it like having a sibling? Like, a real one?”

“I dunno, I mean…” Lily pulled back the covers and squirmed into bed, twisting back and forth until she was in just the most comfortable position, her head pillowed on one arm. “It’s a built-in friend when you’re kids, but everyone changes when they get older, just look at Sirius and Regulus. I think Petunia feels some weird kind of pressure because I’m a witch and she isn’t, and she hasn’t exactly been nice for the last few years. We get along loads better since I’m not friends with Severus anymore, though.”

James Vanished their candy wrappers and got under the covers, laying on his side to face her. “Really?”

“She always thought he was creepy,” She nodded.

“He is creepy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, but that’s not the point. Anyway, we do get along a bit better now, and I try not to talk about school as much.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Yeah well, it’s not always about fair. It makes things easier. I’d still do anything for her, you know? And I think she would me too - to a point, anyway. I guess that’s kind of what it’s like to have a sibling. You might not get along but you’d still do anything for each other.”

“Makes sense.”

“What’s it like to be an only child?”

His response was immediate. “Lonely.”

“Coming to school was probably the best thing that ever happened to you, then.”

“Something like that.”

Lily blushed, James studying her face just a bit too hard then, and turned onto her back. “Hogwarts was the best for me, too. I can’t imagine living as a Muggle now.”

“That’s not what Sirius said.”

“Just because I can’t imagine it doesn’t mean it might not be my reality,” She sighed. “Can we not talk about that right now? I’m just...I’m so tired, you know?”

“I know.” He touched her elbow softly, then retreated back to his side of the bed. He set aside his glasses, extinguished the last lights, and they both tried to sleep.

It didn’t feel like much time had passed when Lily sat straight up in bed, gasping and warm. James started awake, sitting up and lightly touching her back. “Bad dream?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his other hand and tried to fix his vision on her face. Lily flinched at his touch - the dream had felt so real, and it wasn’t her back he had been touching then. He pulled back and turned more fully to face her. “Lily, are you ok?”

“I - um - yes.”

He squinted, his head coming forward slightly. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, smoothing her hair back from her face. She seemed to have lost her hair tie and her braids were long undone. “Just a dream. The chocolate worked, I think.”

“Oh. Ok.” She stared at him, and she could’ve sworn he was blushing the longer she looked. “Evans…?”

Before she knew what she was doing she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his. Kissing James Potter for the first time wasn’t like it always was in those books that Mary kept under her bed - he definitely did not freeze up in shock, and she didn’t have a chance to doubt before he moved closer, hands already in her hair. Come to think of it, it was usually the girls who froze up or stepped back, wasn’t it? But Lily definitely did not want to move away, especially now that she finally had proof that it was even better to mess up James’s hair herself than to watch him do it. She didn’t have any trouble breathing like the girls in the books either, which was just as well because neither of them seemed to want to take a break for anything as silly as air.

It did occur to her, eventually, that she didn’t want to get anywhere approaching what they did in her dream while they were still in the dorm surrounded by the other boys sleeping in their beds. “James.” That was one thing Mary’s books got right - it was quite difficult to talk, and she had to try again. “James, we have to go to sleep.”

His voice was muffled against her neck, but she was pretty sure he said “Nope. Don’t need sleep.”

“We have Potions tomorrow, and there are other people in this room.”

He paused and seemed to deflate. “At least let me give you a hickey to wear to class.”

She snorted and he grinned in the dark. “I think you already did anyway.”

She straightened her pajamas and somehow even found her elastic, quickly bundling her hair up on top of her head. They tried to settle back to sleep, though they weren’t quite as careful as usual to keep from touching under the covers. Lily’s heart was still running a million miles a minute, and she had to force the grin off of her face or else she was sure her cheeks would actually crack off. A glance to her right proved that James wasn’t having any more luck than she was.

“So...this means…?”

“Oh come on Potter, what do you think it means?”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t hate me anymore.”

“Oh my God, I never hated you.”

“I just need to know for sure - am I a better snog than the giant squid?”

She paused just long enough to furrow his brow. “I’m going to have to do more research - I snogged the squid on the beach, not in a bed.”

“We have a free period tomorrow afternoon, I wouldn’t mind a walk down by the lake.”

“Oh, I meant I’ll have to get the squid into bed.”

“Well just let me know how many more experiments you need - all in the name of science, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“I can’t have you telling people that the squid’s a better snog than me, after all.”

“Go to sleep, Potter.”

The next morning came sooner than either of them would have liked, but the look on Snape’s face when she pushed her hair behind her ear in Potions was worth it. Until that point she still wasn’t fully convinced that the night before hadn’t just been a very extended fever dream, but Sirius’s passed note of ‘muffliato next time, would you?’ was more confirmation than she’d expected. At any rate, she found that she didn't seem to mind her sleeplessness as much as her usual insomnia, and as she looked ahead to that night she thought she might not mind a future in research, after all.

#I did it!!#this is about 4K words #and is fluffy as all hell #jily #james potter #lily evans #evanslilyy #sarah writes #fic recs

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