James Potter could never stay still, it was a blessing and a curse. He could be bored to death in a class and he would always be restless somehow. He would either bounce his leg, write on the corner of his books and parchments, or play with a stolen Snitch when professors were not looking.
It wasn’t James’ fault that he was so full of energy, he did try to stay still, he did try to seem like he was paying attention, but in reality he was bored in many of them. Having eidetic memory and an abundance of energy really played against him.
However, when it came to classes outdoors James became much more serene. He loved Care of Magical creatures, going to the grounds exploring, or how he needed to get his hands dirty with Herboly, but what had gotten his attention lately was Astronomy.
Professor Pruitt had a hands-on approach to teaching, he rarely liked the Tower for his teachings and was always testing their knowledge in the field (near the Forbidden Forest), which James was always excited for. And even if at first he took the class for an easy O, now it had become one of his favourite ones.
For his 6th year students, Professor Pruitt had a surprise; they would travel to the coast to be able to watch a comet that passed near earth every 60 years, and this time around it would be visible in the southern part of the country.
It meant a trip with the Astronomy class for two nights, maybe if the weather would allow it they might be able to enjoy a bit of the beach before returning to classes and tests, and all the things they needed to overcome before the end of the school year. One last trip of fun before going back to the responsibility of the upcoming reality that awaited them back home.
James and his friends were beyond excited. Even if Sirius already knew the sky like the back of his hand, Remus was so determined to get as many O’s as possible that he learned everything he could from the book the Professor used for class. Peter was something to admire, he might not know every star, but knew every constellation name and their stories, and how they related to magical events. It was a thing of wonder.
All they could do was plan for the trip and hope that the usual group of bigoted students wouldn’t make things worse.
Once they finally arrived at the Isles of Scilly the weather was amazing, it screamed to ditch the group and just got to the beach, however Professor Pruitt had other plans.
“Before I lose you lads to the island, I must remind you that this is not a leisure trip, we are here with a purpose, and thus I must give you these.” The older man handled everyone a parchment with a copy of the assignment, “The comet will be visible around 4am, so we must get there before that and settle, some muggle bystanders might be around, so please refrain from using magic.” he explained, as he finished handling the paper, “You have been randomly paired, no you can not swap, and I expect a full report by the end of this trip. That is all.”
James was sure that whomever he would be paired with it wouldn’t be too terrible.
As he scanned the paper he heard a familiar voice exclaim: “Potter?!”
Lily had read the list of things they needed to measure and how to better calculate the trajectory of the comet to get accurate readings and optimal experience. She knew that celestial events affected living beings and that might affect the ingredients and steps in potion making, so she was taking this class fairly seriously, as she wanted to pursue a career in Potions.
Everything seemed in order, instructions were straight forward, and she could actually picture herself relaxing before going to the top of the nearby mountain for a better view.
That was until she saw the name of the person she was paired with: James Potter.
The gods did not smile upon her, Lily had had a weird relationship with the fellow Gryffindor, they weren’t on bad terms at the moment, but she felt that they were not exactly friends. And in spite of him being a great student, and probably a great teammate, she just remembered how he could not stay put for more than 5 minutes. Which might infuriate her at the end of a long evening.
After she, unintentionally, said his last name out loud, everyone in their group turned to her. The tone of her skin matching the one of her hair.
“All right, Evans?” she heard James Potter asked.
Lily blushed harder.
“Yes, just didn’t expect us to be paired.” she admitted, putting the parchment inside her back.
James seemed like he was mulling over something, was she really that loud? Was her tone that annoyed? She didn’t want to go back to the awkward phase they were in after 5th year, once was enough. They have so many friends in common she did not want to go back to weather talk.
“I thought somehow you would charm the papers to be with Sirius, we all know you two can not be apart.” she tried joking, making some eyes roll.
“He knows he can’t have me forever, Red.” Sirius chipped in, “I should find McKinnon to sort the schedules.” he explained, patting James' shoulder, who looked disheartened, he was not looking at Lily, nor at Sirius leave. James was just nodding to his friend’s statement.
One by one they all went to their partners trying to come up with a plan where they could all enjoy and do the assignment. Leaving James and Lily alone to speak.
James ran his hand through his hair, messing it more than it already was. Something she had noticed increased near herself.
Did she make him nervous?
“We should also try to schedule our times.” she offered, hoping that it would be an olive branch more than anything.
Every interaction with James and Lily seemed weird, they were not on bad terms, they were amicable towards each other, but it seemed that as much as they both changed (individually and as friends) things weren’t smooth. James was always afraid of saying the wrong thing, and Lily always believed she was too hard on her fellow classmate, when lately she could see more of his point than she cared to admit.
After a lot of fidgeting from James, not knowing what to do with his pent up energy. And Lily’s rambling and blushing, they decided that they would each pack a bag with different things, a thermos of warm tea, and met in front of the hotel at 3am when the classroom decided to leave with the Professor.
Both of them tried to enjoy their day with their friends and did a bit of exploring around, enjoying the different view from Scotland and Hogwarts grounds. And one would say that they would be exhausted after a day at the beach where they did anything but lay down and sunbathe.
However, James’ restless energy was too much to be contained. He did try to get a few hours of sleep, tossed and turned in bed as his mind went over the things in his bag, making a mental list trying to not forget anything, if he did he was sure that the awkwardness between him and Lily would be more palpable. But in spite of double checking that everything was correct, he could not find rest.
Checking the watch on his nightstand he saw that it was around 2am. He still had one hour to meet with Lily, and the rest of the class, and judging by how awake he really was it would be almost impossible to fall asleep.
Suddenly an idea formed, it wasn’t a particularly bold one, but it was better than staying in bed looking at the ceiling.
Gathering his things, leaving a note in the nightstand and trying not to wake his best mate sleeping in the bed next to his, he climbed down the room to the front of the little hotel and to the street.
The night was chillier than he expected, the day was so warm that he forgot that they were still in the United Kingdom and not some tropical place. It was good that he decided to bring a jumper.
During the day James and his friends went exploring around, they found the place where Professor Pruitt had decided to take his students to see the comet. It was a nice mountain that overviewed the island. He figured that he had enough time to go up there, set the equipment in the best spot; gain some points with Lily, and go back before they needed to meet.
Some people might think he was crazy and he would be beyond exhausted when he would get back with the group. Hindering the project in the process. But James knew that it was the opposite, he would be the right kind of tired, where he would be useful instead of trying to stay still and failing in the process.
That’s how his journey started, with a positive attitude and considering if he should get snacks after he got back.
The moon was half full, making it ideal to see the sky but also to not trip over the walk, and the path to the viewing spot wasn’t steep, with a good pace anyone could make it up and back.
Due to the hour James imagined the path to be deserted, he figured he could transform into Prongs once he was more hidden by the surrounding trees, enjoying the freedom of running around a new landscape. It would be a great way to go and come back, doing even better time; not wanting to be late in case Lily decided to be there earlier than what they had agreed upon.
Closing his eyes he focused on the familiar shapes of Prongs; the long legs, the white fur, the itchy antlers that were about to shade. Everything to evoke the perfect transformation.
Feeling the familiar pull in his gut he let every other thought out from his head…
“What are you doing here?” a familiar voice asked.
Of all the times that James expected to hear Lily Evans’ voice, in the middle of a transformation was not one of them. He knew things could go wrong if he did not focus and he tried his best to stop the spell as it were. It seemed that his body listened better than his brain.
“I couldn’t sleep.” he admitted, turning to look at her.
Lily’s cheeks were sunkissed, James could see that she had spent a day at the beach. She would probably have a few more freckles after the trip. James found himself thinking.
“So you decided to sneak out and go for a walk,” it wasn’t accusatory, it was matter-of-fact.
“If I stay in, I'll start waking everyone up, figured it would be best if I did something useful with my energy.” he shrugged, readjusting one of the straps of his backpack.
“Seems we were both thinking the same thing.”
Lily smiled at James, and it seemed all of the tension and worry from earlier had vanished; his shoulders relaxed, and he found himself smiling back at her. Maybe this wouldn’t be a disastrous pairing after all.
“Where were you planning on going?” Lily asked.
James blushed, he really didn’t want to be seen as the dork that wanted to be prepared, but it was true that was what he was thinking. “I thought maybe I could go and grab us a good spot to watch the comet.” he admitted, hoping she wouldn’t think he was the biggest dork in history.
“Oh,” she sounded surprised, James was not sure how he felt about that.
“That sounds like a great idea.” Lily added, as she was wondering why she didn’t think of that herself. She just wanted to get rid of some energy before the class gathered.
They started walking in silence uphill, there was nothing much to distract them from the awkwardness. It was not that they didn’t have anything in common, just that Lily believed that everything she said sounded like a scolding, when she didn’t mean to. And James believed every word he uttered around Lily (unsupervised) was terrible or misconstructed.
His body reacted oddly to that silence. He needed to say something, do something, other than just walk straight in that slow pace, so instead of following the boring old path he decided that he should skip along the logs that delimited the path from the woods.
Lily looked at James as he balanced on each log precariously. “Don’t you ever do something normal?” she asked, genuinely curious, he never seemed to just follow a straight path or instructions, there was always a work around. Something that the other people would not do or think about.
“What do you mean?” he asked, still walking, feeling his anxiety lower when he had to focus on balance.
Lily chuckled. He looked a bit childish, but in the best way, she didn’t remember the last time she played at anything like that. She had too many responsibilities and expectations in her to let go.
“You never do what’s expected, if you go on a path instead of going through the designated area for walking you go on the sidelines. If a professor asks you for an assignment you always ask a million questions on the importance of said work, like you never do just what is expected of you, you are always too curious to just follow what has already been set up. It’s a bit unnerving.” She admitted, making James’ heart sink a little. “It is also refreshing.” she admitted finally, not really looking at him, she believed that even with the darkness of the night he would still see her blush.
James chuckled at her words, “Why don’t you try it?” he offered, “Who is to say that you are not supposed to walk on these if you want a less taciturn experience?” he continued, “There are a few things that can only be looked from one point of view, my parents taught me that, they always taught me to ask a lot of questions.” he admitted “Besides, if you don’t come up here, you wouldn’t notice there is a stream below that looks gorgeous under the dim moonlight.”
Lily was surprised by that, it seemed great to ask a lot of questions when facing things that seemed a bit unfair and out of touch, but some things were too straight forward for you to be questioning them. However, at James’ mention of a different view she now was eager to see what was to look at things under his perspective.
She climbed on the log as he did, looking at the creek below them, and as James said it was gorgeous, like something unperturbed by the humans that passed through that path every day. It made Lily wonder what else James saw that the rest of them did not.
The walk got easier from them, at least in terms of conversation. It got easier to understand each other after that, setting aside past prejudices and trying to see things from each other’s perspective.
Lily learned that James’ parents asked him as many questions as he asked everyone else, trying to have an open and interesting relationship with his son. James learned that Lily put a lot of other people’s expectations on her shoulder trying to be the perfect friend, sister and daughter, and understood a bit better why she always seemed to be so stern even when in reality she was funny and witty, and as curious as James.
They continued to chat amicably, conversation grew easily the more time it passed. James was glad for it, and Lily seemed to be relaxing a bit more now that there was nothing more than a walk.
At some point Lily got distracted, she was not sure how he lost her footing, if it was a tricky log, slippery, or her body was too tired and she did not realise it. But all in all she knew she was falling to the creek and she could just hear herself scream and trying to hold on to something to stop it.
“Lily!” James was heard yelling after her. And then she felt something warm and soft around her, making her fall soft as she rolled downhill. James had stopped it.
“Are you okay?” Lily heard James ask, and she took account of her body. She was a bit sore, and she knew she would hurt more later on, but it all seemed okay at the moment.
“Yes, I think so. Just a bit wet.” she admitted, as she knew they got to the creek by unconventional ways, all she wanted to do was get up and dry herself, get back to the path so they could get to see the comet. However, life had other plans.
As soon as Lily put weight on her foot, a searing pain went up her leg, making her scream at the top of her lungs and falling back down on her bum.
James hurried to duck next to her and looked all over to see any injuries, “Where?” he was frantic as he saw the colour drained from Lily’s face.
“Foot.” was all she could muster, as she breathed the pain away. Slowly managing to get the unbearable pain to a low throb.
“Okay, it’s going to be okay,” he moved his hand, a little wince as he pulled his wand and showed it was broken in half. “Fuck.” he muttered. Lily’s eyes went as wide as they could.
“Oh no, James your wand, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He was panting as her, maybe he hit something as well, they took a pretty nasty fall, but he seemed okay in spite of not having his wand. “Maybe we can use yours? I know a few casting spells to keep that not moving until we get back.” he explained, but as Lily went to retrieve her wand she felt nothing in her pocket.
“I think it might have fallen.” she said quietly, hating that she hadn’t learned yet how to accio it back, she had been trying but there was so much on her plate at the moment.
“We can come back with light and try to find it. But first we need to get out of here.” He took off his backpack, wincing again, making Lily worry.
“Are you okay yourself?” Lily asked worriedly.
“Brill, just sore.” he lied, but Lily did not have to know that on top of her nasty sprain, he had sprained his wrist as well. He could endure, he had had worse with Quidditch matches and Snape’s & Co. hexes. “You do know how to fall.” he tried teasing her worries away, instructing her to put the backpack herself. “You’ll carry it, I’ll carry you.”
Instructions were easy enough, Lily just had to lay off her foot, and James was already turning around so Lily could climb onto his back, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. Making Lily feel a bit embarrassed.
“Isn’t it too heavy? You could go up and get someone.” she offered, worried that he was doing too much.
“I won’t leave you here all alone in the middle of the night.” James was not taking no for an answer, he was just waiting for Lily to feel secure to start climbing the steep hill himself.
Lily could hear the grunts from pain and effort coming out of James, she was not sure why he was going above and beyond for someone that he wasn’t as close with, even though she was grateful that he didn’t leave her in the middle of nowhere with a swollen ankle.
It took longer than if he had gone alone to climb back to the path. They almost slipped back a couple of times but James managed to get them up safely.
“We are closer to the viewing point than the hotel.” he explained as he sat Lily on one of the logs for a moment while his breath evened out. “We should wait there for the others, not sure if they’ll take this path or the one that goes around the beach.” he said, looking down the path hoping to see or hear something, but he didn’t.
When he turned around he could see Lily was still a little pale and shivering from the soreness and dampness of her clothes. “Here,” he said, offering his jacket.
The redhead looked at him and shook her head, “You’ll need it, the temperature is lowering.”
James chuckled, a bit uneven, “I’m carrying you around, I’m actually a bit hot.” he admitted looking her in the eyes, something he didn’t dare to do often. “Take the jacket, Evans, I’ll be warm enough I didn’t fall in the water.”
Lily didn’t need too much persuasion, soon she was putting the jacket and getting the backpack on once more, before they parted towards the comet viewing place.
It didn’t take long for them to reach a spot. It was exactly what was marked on the map the Professor gave them.
James had prepared some blankets for them to sit on, he put one below them so they would not sit on the cold hard floor, and grabbed the second one to replace his jacket. Noticing Lily still shivering he sat behind her, allowing her back to be up to his chest.
“What are you doing?” she asked, not putting too much of a fight, she was exhausted, in pain but she needed to admit that James’ warmer body behind hers felt nice. Even if the position was a little odd for two friends to be in.
“Relax, we just have one blanket left, and your back is all wet. Don’t want you to catch a cold, but don’t want to catch my death either.” he mumbled behind her, reaching out for his bag, wincing a bit as he got a hold of it.
“You got yourself hurt too, why didn’t you say anything?” she said holding his hand, examining his wrist, that looked swollen from a sprain and the effort to carry her.
James blushed knowing exactly why he didn’t say anything, she would argue with him that they could both wait by the creek, but that would mean she would be colder and it would be almost impossible for them to be seen by the others. She would insist that they should both rest, or that he would go without her, and he would not have that.
“I’m used to it, I get injured in Quidditch all the time. Don’t worry about it.”
“Of course I worry! I care about you, you bloody idiot, we could have come up with a different plan!” she could not believe he had been that careless, he could endanger his Quidditch career because of it. It wasn’t like they were in mortal peril, they could wait for morning, their grades were not that important, his well being was more important than that.
“You were going to suggest to leave you there, or to wait there while you get even wetter, colder and with less and less chance of us getting found by the group. And I was not going to risk you for a sprain that I’m sure Sirius will heal as soon as he gets here." There was no discussion to be had, she was not going to convince him to have left her behind, no amount of Quidditch and future prospects he had, a human life was more important.
Lily tried to argue as she saw him taking a thermos out of the bag, she helped him with it since she knew he would be hurting even if he did not show it. “I still deserved to be told, I’m not a damsel in distress, I can think for myself, even come up with something other than staying behind. I don’t appreciate not having a say.” She opened the thermos and poured what seemed to be hot tea.
James felt embarrassed, of course she should have had a say in all, but he was thinking on his feet more than dismissing her ideas. “Drink, it’ll do you good.” he added softly.
“It’ll do you good as well, you must also be cold.” She gave him the cup and waited for him to drink to pour herself a cup.
After they drank the tea they just stay there, next to each other, keeping the warmth of their bodies by proximity and hoping that sooner rather than later they would be found.
After a while Lily murmured “Thanks,” back to James, “for not leaving me behind.” she added, for good measure, to which he replied “No need.”
Their bodies’ tiredness won over after they made themselves as comfortable as possible, and soon enough slumber took over, each other enjoying the safe company of the other. That is how the class found them: sound asleep, dirty, and hugging each other.