#there are of course the highly misogynistic ‘lily married james for money and status’ takes

[slitheringghost]

I really liked your post about James + Lily's canonically volatile relationship, I've always thought that the reasons they got married (and so young) was because 1) shotgun wedding 2) James couldn't even bring himself to say "mudblood," immediately accepted werewolves, "hated the dark arts," etc, which must've meant a great deal to Lily in wartime. I have one disagreement, if you don't mind - I doubt James asked her out before SWM, because Lily looks so surprised after he does and he probably blurted it out in the heat of the moment. Doesn't make it much better in context though. I also think Lily was at least intrigued by him beforehand, I have a HC that her favorite part of being a witch is flight - it's her first piece of magic we see Snape observe in The Prince's Tale, and I'll bet she commiserated with Snape over wishing they could just fly out of Cokeworth (Harry used to dream about the same thing before Hogwarts - on Sirius's motorbike!). And I'm pretty sure Snape is the only one besides Voldemort who flies unaided so that's kinda touching to me. So James being an excellent flier must've at least drawn her attention - but I think she was immediately disgusted with herself for that. Honestly their arguments must've been even worse than Ron/Hermione, Sirius and Harry have all my sympathies for dealing with this. This is why I HC that the moment Jily started going out in 7th year, Sirius decided to finally try dating partly to get over his un(?)requited love for James (and Lily?) and partly just to avoid being around their incessant fighting lol.

(in response to this meta) Thank you for the ask, I’m glad you found the post interesting! Yeah I’ve gone back and forth on that, my original interpretation was also that it was a spur of the moment thing he just blurted out without thinking, which I still find very plausible. I’ve also seen the take that James felt “safe” for Lily during the war, it is just anything on that line of thought for Jily, Lily being in love with Sirius can explain much better lmao (after all Sirius running away from his family shows his dedication to his politics better than James’s).

Oh I looove what you said about Lily and Snape wishing they could fly out of Cokeworth and the parallel to Harry!

Funnily enough, I actually HC that Sirius and Lily were talking about Sirius charming his motorbike to fly (or having started the research for it anyway) while they were waiting in line for O.W.L.s - because if you pay attention to Harry's OWLs, we know the students were standing in line alphabetically, and per DH Sirius and Lily are next to each other alphabetically - and Lily was grudgingly super impressed. That makes “I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it” an extra sick burn towards James, lol. Agree about Lily loving flight, and I think I had Lily finding James’s flight grudgingly endearing in a WIP but that was before I became considerably more anti Jily. I like the idea that Lily’s two best friends Snape and Sirius came up with alternate methods of flight to Quidditch and both can’t stand Quidditch like her lmao (Sirius only dealing with it for James’s sake).

But regarding James being against the Dark Arts (I think the text / you meant against Dark wizards rather than the theoretical type of magic but this just reminded me of this fic), I love this part in brilliant difficulty where Lily dated both Snape and Sirius before she dated James, and Lily and her two boyfriends were all super into Dark Arts (and James being against Dark Arts as a type of magic is something him and Lily conflict over) and Madame Pomfrey is yelling at them about it, a perfect representation of their intellectual connection:

“I am tired of seeing students unnecessarily hospitalized by experimentation in the Dark Arts that I cannot actually see them assisted with with lest the Ministry haul them off to Azkaban - and do not give me those looks! Professor Snape, I remember your final years of school! Professor Black, in addition to your personal activities I have ample records of your family from previous Hogwarts Healers! And your mother," she said, rounding on Harry, "Was the worst of you all!“

Yeah, I think Sirius’s unimpressed reaction to Jily is so telling, especially given he was clearly close to Lily. “James is getting frustrated” in Lily’s letter also definitely sounds like code for “we are fighting come save us”, lol.

Personally I love to think of Lily’s love for Sirius being unrequited until like late 1981 where Sirius Just starts to return them and then Lily dies. Also I find it such a fun twist on the usual “Snape unrequited pining for Lily and Sirius unrequited pining for James”. That letter gives major pathetic pining vibes from Lily tbh. I generally HC Sirius dating a lot from early on as rebellion from his family’s arranged marriage plan for him (which makes Lily’s pining even worse and more painful) but yeah I can definitely see that too.