Most Happily Ever Afters come together through years of hard work, years of pain and emotion and happiness that never lasted more than days at a time. Most Happily Ever Afters come at the peak of ambition when kids are grown and hairs are slowly turning gray. Strangely, for Lily and James their Ever After was much simpler.

Well, not exactly simpler because there was Lily's melodramatic yearning for reality and James' ecstasy for those fantasies that were so close to becoming his. They were at an awkward age back then when the only things keeping the two lovers from perfection were themselves. Don't you remember what being seventeen was like when you were either on the top of the world or the lowliest dung on the street? Poor Lily, poor James and their elaborate minds that must complicate simple matters.

Christmas was a special day for Lily and James. In their first year, Christmas Day was the first prank James ever played. Sirius Black was a horrendous influence on a boy who could have turned out to be so sweet. In their third year, Christmas was when Lily got her first kiss and that same year James won the winter quidditch match. In fifth year, Christmas Day Petunia got married and gave Lily a brilliant excuse to spend that lovely break in a world she never could stop calling home. In miraculous London, Lily's first love.

Last year at Christmas, well don't you remember what happened? James Potter sitting on the couches watching Remus and Sirius play a game of exploding snap. James Potter laughing, the most musical sound, when Sirius burned off an eyebrow. James Potter sitting exquisitely on the couch as Lily Evans contemplated the dancing of the fire's glow upon his olive colored face. Lily Evans and her spontaneous decision to kiss those lips she'sfantasized about and touch that velvety hair she felt in her dreams and then awkwardness afterwards that made her walk away. Last Christmas was their favorite Christmas of all.

This Christmas all they had was each other. The two lovers sitting by the warm fire, sweets lay out at their feet, music being hummed out of James Potter's too delicious lips.

"When are you going to just give up and admit that your mine?" He had whispered ruggedly into her ear when the yearning for her had reached its pinnacle. He had touched her face and traced her lips and before he could taste the sweetness of Lily Evans, her willowy body floated just out of reach.

"You, Mr. Potter, must know that I am nobody's." Always playing games even at the most intimate and sincere of moments. Always remaining elusive, even at the cost of her own heart. Out of reach, forever, knowing deep inside that the time will once again come when James stops chasing her and she'll forever have to live without her tragic hero. Seventeen year olds are senseless creatures.

"Stop playing with me Lily. Just stop it. Either you're in or you're out but I won't play this game with you any longer. I'm done, do you hear? I'm done!" Fire lit up in his golden stare and she remained mesmerized at the pain etched in his face. She had closed her eyes, had prayed for strength and none came. With her last ounce of life she opened her eyes just in time to see James turn away and stalk out the portrait hole door. She turned her eyes toward the fire. The once bright flames flickered and left Lily in a lonely darkness.

She knew where he was heading. She knew the broom shed was about to be busted open and an ancient school shooting star about to be taken out of its resting place. She knew that if she looked out the window at that exact moment she would see a beautiful silhouette flying against the moon. If only she had the strength.

Once when she was five she asked her mother what love was. Her mother's eyes had lit up and she told Lily, "Love is perfection, Lily. Love is the beauty of life knowing that forever you willhave true happiness. Perfection, my darling, absolute perfection."

Lily had believed her. Lily had taken to heart the words of perfection and happiness and the glittering smile on her mother's face when her father was near. Lily had taken to heart the look in her mother's eyes, the glow and the optimism, and she knew that it was love. She knew then and there as a five year old girl that perfection was her destiny.

When Lily was seven her parents divorced. It was clean. No blood thirsty fights that would have left Lily scared in her room. No dirty play by either parent. It was simple. Joint custody that ended up being weekend visits to the outskirts of London to see her mother. She had the choice to choose which parent she wanted to live with. It was an easy choice. All who knew Lily could tell you one thing. Lily's heart never left London. With her dad. With her past.

Lily's mother didn't smile after that. There was the occasional sad smile reminiscent of past glows that once lit up her face. But she lost the life she once had inside of her when she spoke of love and knew from the moment she met her ex-husband her life would be made of perfection. She lost it, why wouldn't the same thing happen to Lily?

Oh God, she couldn't imagine losing James like that. Lily Evans could never imagine a single moment of her life without James. It would be impossible. She wouldn't survive. Her mother was strong. She could look the devil in the eye and stand untouched by his torture. Lily would bend her knee and fearfully obey him.

When Lily was nine, she asked her mother if it hurts when your heart breaks. Innocence shined in those usually cynical eyes and her mother couldn't stop her eyes from welling up with tears. "Darling, let's hope you never have to find out." Lily asked again, but her mother was gone lost inside memories of their London apartment when she and Lily's father were still able to understand each other. It was the first time Lily realized that forever is not as long as it seems to be.

That Christmas night, Lily sat in the stadium bleachers for three hours waiting for James to come down. She stared at him hovering above and felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach as sickening bile rose into her throat. James was right when he said she was playing a game.

She wondered sometimes why he put up with her. She was a muggleborn witch pining for years long gone and a world she hardly fits in anymore. She was a simple girl unreachable behind a wall of glass. A girl afraid that he was everything she ever wished for and what that could mean.

But when had it become fun? When had her defenses become a game of keep away, a way to make her laugh and smile when she thought up different ways of refusing James? When had it become painful? When had she started tearing away at James' heart?

Most teenage girls are foolish. They forget to look at long term consequences and the feelings surrounding them and in Lily's outbursts of wild gaiety she was as foolish as any. As foolish as any teenage girl staring into the endless golden stare of James Potter knowing herself to be completely enslaved. Actual, it makes Lily and James just that much more perfect for each other.

"James!" She had called when the waiting became too agonizing. "James, please come down!" She screamed into the eerie night sky that seemed brighter, more beautiful for the mere hours James flew amongst its' stars.

He landed on the other side of the bleachers and the only thing about her not completely cast into shadows was her eyes, glowing and bright. Always glowing, always bright. James asked her once how she could make her eyes glitter at any time. Lily smiled. "It's easy; all I have to think of is London." Only that night she was thinking of James.

"I'm sorry James." She admitted into the shadows where only part of his face could be seen. "I was so foolish."

"I just need to know, Lily. I need to know if we're ever going to happen. I can't spend my life waiting for you to want me."

Insecurities plague even the most intimidating of people. From the moment James Potter met Lily Evans he assumed his insecurity, his tragic flaw forever keeping him from that pinnacle of perfection Lily always believed him to be. She kept him from beauty, from the glitter he grew up with, because he never knew if Lily Evans ever loved him. She never said it and he never asked.

Childish romance isn't supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be easy when you're young and willing to throw your heart out there for that very first time. In first loves you give all you can, throw yourself completely into the relationship believing that it will never end. Lily was James' first love. London was Lily's.

There are so many reasons for her love of London. The only reason truly important is that Lily Evans was never able to let go of her past. Living with her father, Lily was surrounded by echoes of her mother's laugh and her sister's stories and it was home. It was safety and it was comfortable and it was love, pure and simple.

She tried to love Hogwarts. She tried to love the walls that talked and the ceiling that resembled the morning sky. She tried to love that feeling deep inside, the one where she knew, could feel, that anything was possible. She just never could.

James did though. He loved that feel of magic, that innate pleasure it gives all witches and wizards. There's a pull of magic, a feeling of endless possibilities and glittering laughter, that thrives inside all magical creatures. It's a trust, a need that can't be taught and can't be assumed. It's a faith Lily never learned inside the castle walls.

"I'm scared James. I'm so afraid." Her honest words filtered into his surprised ears. James Potter could never be intimidated by perfection. He was intimidation.

"Of me?" He asked misunderstanding her meaning. Misunderstanding the pain he saw forming in her eyes. Still glowing, still glittering no matter how hurt she seemed to be.

"Of us." Silence. Screaming silence that said everything in their hearts, their minds. Screaming silence that answered questions neither asked and gave solutions that neither could hear.

He looked at her. Crystalline tears forming in her eyes. Her every feature begging him, but for what? What was it that she wanted him to do that he hadn't already done? What else was she asking of him?

"I don't know what you want, Lily. But if it's not me I would like to know." He had said ending the silence that was strangling her. He spoke and then flew away to the broom shed leaving Lily alone in the bleachers. This past Christmas was not one they would cherish forever.

Five days. Five days she lived without him. Five days she didn't see him, didn't speak with him, and spent hours in the astronomy tower just thinking about him. Five days was all it took and James Potter became an all-consuming obsession.

His friends came back to Hogwarts the day before New Years. All Gryffindor seventh years did because they got special permission to throw a party. A last hurrah for the graduating class, if you will. Lily spent that day hiding away in the library still wondering what it was she was supposed to do. Still wondering if she would be able to do anything at all.

Fear is an amazing emotion. It could invigorate you, enliven you, or completely paralyze you. Lily wasn't her mother. Lily wouldn't survive the loss of her paradise, she couldn't.

She watched him at the party. She sat in a corner by the fire and just stared at him goofing off with his friends. Their relationship always amazed her. The complete trust and reliance of those four boys would amaze any person who ever saw them.

He seemed so… perfect that night. Disheveled hair. Eyes glowing with undaunted laughter. It was in those moments, moments when she could look at him and feel he was so imperfectly human, that she knew she loved him. Loved him despite her fear, despite his glittering perfection when he wasn't being a teenage boy.

She listened carefully as they counted down at the end of the night. She watched James look suddenly tragic as he realized she wasn't in his arms. Watched James looking for her in the crowd painfully knowing that she wasn't near him. Slowly she walked to him, slyly as not to give herself away and as the crowd shouted one she pulled his face to her own and passionately kissed him in the first moment of the New Year. And in that moment, that moment of love and trust and need, nothing else mattered to her but him. Nothing else would matter ever again.

She suddenly realized that night. It was suddenly clear. No matter what happens, perfection, their love, is a taste that would stay in her mouth forever. And for that, that eternity she would never assume with anything else, for that anything is worth the risk.

END

I hopeits a good ending... Did this instead of study for AP Government. Can't take it anymore lol!

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