The yearning was disgusting, Lily came to realize. James was worse, arguably, but the sheer want she had grown for him was ripping her inside out. His stupid glasses were slightly lower on the left side, and his thick eyebrows were always in the right shape. The way he would stretch his back muscles before Quidditch drove her insane, and it sounded so vain to her because he was sweet, and respectful to his parents, and so utterly stupid when he showed off in front of her, also known as right now:
‘James.’ She tried to cut in, they were head boy and head girl and it was the night before winter break so to be mildly considerate they gave all prefects the night off of doing rounds, but since it was compulsory they took on the task. Lily had packed already, and James had assured her Sirius… or ‘Padfoot’ was doing his packing as ‘payment for coming over for the 100th time’ but Lily had no faith in that scatter-brained puppy.
‘Evans.’ he teased, voice mildly insufferable; but the rasp from lack of sleep and how he was deepening it to show off made her hate herself; because Merlin was it working. ‘Where are we going James?’ She insisted; hiding all her feelings behind a thick layer of contempt, he was the down-bad one here, not her.
‘You’ll see.’ Some days she genuinely couldn’t understand how anyone could enjoy his company, other days she basked in him like a cat lays in the sun. His hand was loosely under hers, thumb wrapped around her four fingers so she could leave if she didn’t wish to stay. James had never asked her out before, of course; she knew he was into her from day one, but he always used to say he needed to wait until the right time, but a 14 year old Lily who hated him with the wrath of Merlin didn’t think there would ever be a ‘right time’.
There was, and it was now. Her loose curls, darkened by the dim light, never had the chance to fall back down as James made them run through a long empty corridor. His laughs reverberated off the old mahogany-and-stone walls, and her leather Mary Janes slipped every time she lifted her foot to keep the pace. Yet she didn’t want to slow down. Because how could you ever wish to slow down with James?
His white shirt was wrinkled at the edges and had a thick line of dust across the back of it from being shoved into a wall earlier while dicking around with Peter, and the tanned skin of his back could be seen through any time they had just passed a light; she couldn’t get enough. His waist didn’t go in, but his back dipped where his spine was, his shoulders were broad (they had to be for quidditch), and small stretch marks displayed themself on the right side of his lower back.
She wanted to touch it, grab him by it. But she couldn’t, and so she uselessly ran behind him through the empty halls of Hogwarts. Always just behind him because you couldn’t keep up with him, in anything. It was almost freeing, but James; the idiot that he was, was as free as you could get.