The Flower and the Stag

You just lay there on your bed, your copy of Quidditch Through the Ages open in front of you, though you don't really want to read and your eyes have been staring blankly at the same word, Quaffle, for the last hour or so. You don't care.

So you think instead, think of what she is doing now - probably studying in the library, or chatting dinner away with her friends in the Great Hall, or reading on one of the comfy armchairs in front of the fire of the common room that you, as Head Boy and Girl, share. It's easy to picture her in all of those places, for you have already seen her doing those same things so many times the images are clear like photographs in your mind.

Odd, how your own life seems to lack of interest whenever she's not around you.

Then you hear a knock on the door, and you know that it's Sirius, or Remus maybe, coming to try to pull you out of the bad mood you have been in for the whole week, since you last spoke to her, since you had the worst argument you have ever had in the seven years you have known her.

The memory of her eyes welling up with tears is still sharp as shards of glass in your mind, your left cheek, where she slapped you, still tingling slightly whenever you touch it. You weren't expecting her to be so strong to leave a bruise on your skin, yet the faint purple shadow on your face has taken days to heal.

It's just one of the thousand things you have underestimated of her.

You've never felt so guilty in your whole life.

You decide not to open the door, for you just want to brood by yourself, but the knock comes again, and again, and you have no choice but to get up and grudgingly walk over to see who the hell it is.

You ready yourself to yell at your friends to leave you alone, swinging the door open with an insult already on the tip of your tongue, yet the word dies before it leaves your lips when you see that it is not of your mates standing on the threshold of your room.

No pissed Sirius, no worried Remus, no shy Peter trying to get you out of your burrow.

Just her.

She's wearing old jeans that look too big for her tiny frame, the fabric riding low on her hips, a red tank top and battered black tennis shoes with untied laces; her hair, which she's cropped just below her shoulders at the beginning of the summer, is a mess of waves and curls, and she's wearing glasses, those large glasses she hates, even though you think they look so cute on her.

Only then you notice that her eyes, those emerald eyes you know better than your own, are rimmed with red and circled by dark shadows - like she's been crying for hours.

And it breaks your heart.

She stands there, almost shyly, her shoulders a little hunched like she's trying to hide, her small hands nervously tormenting the hem of her top, and you can see that she is at war with herself, because you know her – you know that she is so stubborn that she would never admit she was wrong, especially in front of you.

She looks tormented, and tired, and so frail…

You want nothing more than to hold her close and tell her you're sorry, to beg for her forgiveness, but before you can do any of those things she steps closer and buries her face in your shirt, her arms wrapping tightly around your waist as she mutters that she's sorry, that you don't deserve any of the venom that she has spat at you that evening.

And as she lifts her eyes to look at you and gently caresses the faint bruise on your cheek you realise that you suddenly feel whole again, that the dull ache in your chest has suddenly disappeared just with that small touch.

So you dip your head and kiss her, because you are James Potter, and she's Lily Evans, and it doesn't matter if you fight and yell and curse each other's names, for you're in love, and you are meant to be, and having each other is going to be enough, for both of you.ro