Secret Agent Cupids
James was laying on the floor staring up at Lily who had her eyebrows furrowed together in an equally unimpressed and confused manner. It was equally adorable and actually quite scary. He went to pull himself up but accidentally grabbed an unsteady pile of books instead of the book case that subsequently toppled to the ground with a loud thud.
Lily’s eyes widen and in unison they snapped their heads towards Sirius and Remus, to find Remus staring right back in their direction. Lily immediately dropped to the floor, joining James.
“Did you hear that?” Remus asked Sirius still looking sceptically in their direction. Fortunately for them though Sirius was so enamoured by gazing wistfully at Remus that he hadn’t heard them.
“Hm? No” Sirius responded absentmindedly “Could you read this to me again please?”
“Last I checked you could read yourself” Remus huffed but his feigned exasperation was significantly undermined by the gentle smile playing on his lips as he looked at Sirius endearingly.
“But it sounds so much better in your voice, Moons” James shakes his head amusedly, Sirius is such a flirt. Remus rolls his eyes but starts reading anyways.
It draws his attention back to what he is doing in the moment. He turns his head to look at Lily finding that they are a lot closer than he originally realised. Up close like this he can really appreciate the colour of her eyes, somehow both emerald and ocean green, its utterly enchanting.
Realisation hits them both at the same time and they narrow their eyes in unison.
“What are you doing hiding in the bookshelves?” Lily whispers.
“What are you doing hiding in the bookshelves?" James counters.
“I asked you first” she crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow “clearly its something to do with Sirius and Remus, are you pranking them or something?”
“No I’m not” Lily looks at him expectantly waiting for him to continue, and James really doesn’t want to he’s a terrible liar. He could tell her the truth but this seems like the type of thing she would frown upon and he can’t risk her telling them what he’s planning it will mess everything up. “I’m just… checking on them… to make sure they’re safe.”
“Wait- are they alright? Did they get into a fight with someone or something” she looks genuinely distressed and now James feels really guilty he didn’t want to worry her.
“No, no, its just… erm… just…” James stutters frantically trying to think of an excuse. Lily is a smart girl and he can practically see the cogs turning in her head as she must be going over the events that got them here, working out what possible motivations he could have. She looks off to the side as she worries her bottom lip between her teeth in thought while her furrowed brow deepens. Then her gaze snaps back to James so suddenly it startles him, he swears those eyes will be the death of him. She looks him up and down as if doing some calculations.
Slowly a mischievous grin starts to twitch up the corner of her lips, he follows the movement finding it so amusing and immediately wanting to be in on whatever has caused the sharp change in expression.
The grin stays in place as she begins her interrogation but is still accompanied by a cautionary glare. “You bought Sirius here?” he nods in response “to Remus” nods again “but clearly not to do work seeing as neither of you have brought anything with you, and seeing as you are currently hiding behind a bookcase” James stares back at her like a deer caught in headlights.
Her smile widens, clearly all too pleased with herself “so when you say you’re ‘checking up on them’ I say you actually mean ‘you’re checking how your planned little study date is going.’”
“You don’t understand, they’ve been in love with each other forever and neither of them will do anything about it and I told myself I’d stay out of it but they deserve to be happy you know and they’d be so happy together they just need a little push in the right direction which is what I’m doing. But please Lily you can’t tell them they’ll be so cross and it will make the whole plan fail” James rushes out and when he looks back to Lily he sees her grin has melted into a much more genuine almost fond smile.
“I’m not going to tell them you idiot. Why do you think I’m here?” she raises her eyebrows expectantly whilst he looks back blankly. Honestly when James was asking why she was there it was mainly a deflection technique although now she mentions it it’s a bit strange she’s also hiding behind a bookcase. He realises he is taking quite some time to put together but luckily Lily is being patient with him, simply watching him while he works to put the pieces together.
Then he gasps at the realisation which earns him a stern finger on lips gesture from Lily, which he puts up too placating hands, grimacing and mouthing ‘my bad’ in response.
“You’re trying to help get them together too?” he asks for confirmation.
“Yes and I have been for a little while now. Are you the reason they keep ending up with moments to themselves?”
“Yeah, and oh merlin you’re the reason for all the others that I didn’t plan” she truly is brilliant, but then he remembers the fact that he thought it was down to the universe and is slightly dejected, Lily looks confused by his sudden change and explains “I thought all the ‘coincidences’ were the universe rooting for their love.”
Lily clearly tries to go for sympathetic but its obvious she is trying and failing to conceal a smile. James doesn’t think Lily should ever conceal her smile, it’s so lovely. At that moment Lily gets distracted by something through the shelves and so he turns to follow her line of sight to watch.
Remus is still reading to Sirius but in the time they’ve been distracted the two have moved closer together as though their love is a physical magnetic pull that draws them together. Then Sirius gently lays his head against Remus’ shoulder, a small gesture but it makes Remus’ breath catch before he recovers to continue reading. He watches as they both get matching small smiles grown on their face and Sirius closes his eyes in bliss as though he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else than feeling Remus presence beside him.
Sirius turns his head slightly and Remus lets out a surprised laugh “Sirius did you just smell me?”
“No” Sirius says, then tilts his head slightly so he can look up at Remus “yes.”
Remus looks down at him amused waiting for an explanation, Sirius simply shrugs and says “you shouldn’t smell so good if you don’t want me to sniff you.”
Remus shook his head smiling to himself and they returned as they were. They were somehow making everything a two-man job; Sirius turning the pages for Remus on the textbooks, picking up a quill dipping it in ink before passing it to Remus despite it being well within Remus’ reach to do so himself, then Remus even going as far as feeding Sirius a crisp every few bites of his own. All the while Sirius never once removed his head from Remus’ shoulder. It was undoubtedly slowing down the whole revision process but for once Remus must have found this fact irrelevant because they looked so content with one another. Sharing their love through each small action.
“I’ll give credit where its due, Potter, you did a good job with this one” Lily spoke making him grin proudly.
“Thank you.” He paused for a moment contemplating then was struck with an idea. “What do you say we team up, Lils?”
“Team up?”
“Yeah, me and you helping Sirius and Remus in their venture for love. We’d be like two secret agent cupids.”
Lily paused to ponder for a bit, that thinking face making a return.
“You can’t think of it as a prank James” she turned suddenly more serious “you know how they can both be with their emotions, we cant mess this up or we could really end up hurting them.”
Whilst James liked to make it fun, he cared so deeply about his friends and would do absolutely anything to protect them from any form of harm. He is honestly slightly insulted that Lily would even think for a moment he would do anything to hurt them. But he understands it’s most likely that she cares just as strongly and so he can appreciate her shared desire to protect their friends.
“I would never hurt them. The whole reason why I started doing this is because I saw the way they were both repeatedly hurting themselves by denying them the opportunity to be happy with one another. I don’t take anything more seriously than my friends happiness and well-being.”
He looks back at Lily expectantly waiting for an answer.