a/n: This is for the absolutely perfect Vicky (blurs of red and blonde) as part I of her birthday gift because she's finally legal and I love her and we need to talk more. Yeah.

disclaimer: Obviously, JK Rowling is not a Canadian teenager, so obviously, I don't own the Harry Potter series. The quote from the beginning is also not mine.

If I had one moment left (i'd spend it with you)
James/Lily

"We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox."

— Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

.

Winter is her favourite time of year. At least, at Hogwarts it is. What's not to love about the thin layer of frost covering the grounds — making everything look like the inside of a snow-globe, or the crackling firewood in the Common Room? When she stares outside at the winter wonderland, it's its own kind of magic — something that the war (which is getting more fierce by the day) will not be able to wreck.

At least, she hopes so.

She knows that she's supposed to be meeting Marlene and Alice for some Defence Against the Dark Arts prep, but she just can't tear herself away from all of this — her mug of hot chocolate sprinkled with cinnamon; the scenic view; and her favourite novel of all time, Pride & Prejudice.

There is a little bit of wind in the air, ruffling around her red waves, and there is no sun in the sky. In her opinion, it doesn't get much better than —

"Hey, Ev — Lily," a very familiar male voice calls. She barely stifles a groan — despite the fact that she's learned to tolerate, and maybe even befriend, him, does not mean that she wants him interrupting the magic that has encased her from the very first page of the book.

She scowls at him, that's her usual reaction, before remembering that they're kind of friends at this point. Still, she isn't pleased with him for ruining the moment. (After all, she was just at the part where Darcy had proposed to Elizabeth for the first time — only to be shot down; their tale did seem kind of familiar to her, but she didn't know why.) "Potter," she acknowledges with barely a smile.

"Ouch, Lily, I'm hurt," James says theatrically. "I thought we were on first-name basis right now."

"Anyone who interrupts me when I'm reading is back on last name terms with me, Potter," she shoots back. There is a smile on her face, however, so he knows that she's joking . . . partially.

"Okay, okay, sorry. I just saw you sitting here . . . and I thought that you might want some company," he says sheepishly, avoiding her eye. Lily raises an eyebrow. He brings a hand up to ruffle is already messy hair, getting bits of snow everywhere.

Somehow, the act, which had been so annoying before, makes him even more endearing to her and she gives him a small smile.

"Thanks for the offer, James, but I was just thinking and reading — " she shrugs. " — none of the stuff that you'd be interested in, right?"

James isn't looking at her, however. Instead, his hazel eyes are skimming over the grounds and over the whomping willow, past Hagrid's hut and the Quidditch pitch, as though he'll never see them again. His voice is distance when he finally responds, "Hogwarts is so different at wintertime. Like we're in a new world."

"I know," Lily says, nodding. "It's kind of sad that this is the last winter we'll spend here, isn't it?"

"It's been almost home for so long that I just can't imagine not living here," James says with a sigh, running his hand through his already messy hair. She finds herself subconsciously leaning closer to James; almost as if they're on orbit.

"We'll be going our separate ways in June," Lily says with a smile, albeit a bit forced. James Potter has been part of her life for so long — whether as a nuisance or a friend — that life without him will feel . . . weird.

"You know you'll miss me," James says with a teasing grin. She feels her insides stir for a moment.

"You wish," she replies jokingly, giving him a wink. "But seriously, life won't be this simple ever again."

"Life isn't simple!" James argues.

"Compared to life next year, this is simple."

"I guess you have a point — Dumbledore is here, and we have his protection . . . but the moment we step out of those gates . . . we're fair game."

"Actually," Lily says, a small crease forming between her eyebrows. "I'm fair game. You're a pureblood and not a blood-traitor, you'll be fine."

James raises his eyebrows, "And you'll really think I'll stand there while You-Know-Who kills innocent children? I guess you don't know me well then, Lily." He turns away from her, and from the rigid posture of his back, she knows that he's offended by her comment.

Suddenly, despite the fact that he had interrupted her musing time, she doesn't want him to leave. Not now, not ever. She grabs onto his coat. "No, James, that's not what I meant. I — I meant that you weren't on the priority list. Although, knowing you, you'll put yourself there within a year."

James lets out a chuckle, "As if. Six months, tops."

Lily gives him a genuine smile, "I wouldn't bet on that." He stares at her, slightly lost in the musical sound of her laughter. "Knowing you and Bl — Sirius."

"And me, Padf — Sirius, Remus, and Peter will be best friends into old age and see the downfall of Voldy together," James continues, trying to avoid Lily's intoxicating green eyes. "And you, Lily Evans, will be stopping us from kicking Death Eater arse, am I right?" She swats his arm lightly, dropping her book onto the snow.

"Who says we'll even know each other when we're old, James?" she says teasingly, wrapping a strand of red hair around her finger. "Maybe you'd have given up on me or let me go."

The laughter dies completely from James' face.

"If I had you," James whispers, and she can feel his cool breath tickling her neck — she suddenly notices how close they are, but she doesn't want to move. Not at all. "If I had you, I'd never let you go."

.

And suddenly, it feels like there is too much space between them and so she draws herself up to her full height and kisses him smack dab on the lips.

He's kissing her back, all of a sudden, and she forgets all the reasons why she wasn't supposed to like James Potter; she forgets about his annoying friends and his oversized ego — which has actually shrunk considerably from even last year —

He tastes like cool mint and hot chocolate, and Lily smiles into the kiss because it just feels . . . right.

.

When she gets back to the Common Room, alone — she makes sure to get back precisely ten minutes after James, thus avoiding any suspicion — there is a grin on her face that she just can't seem to wipe off because she kissed James Potter . . . and liked it.

She glances out the window for pigs of the flying variety.

"Hey, Lily," Marlene calls, there is the merest hint of a smile in her voice — almost like she knows something Lily doesn't, and as Lily catches the eyes of her best friends, she notices that they all have the same look in their eyes.

"What have you guys been up to?" Lily asks, still breathless — from the kiss or the cold, she doesn't know — Marlene's knowing smirk gets wider, if possible. "I'm sorry, I know that I was supposed to meet you guys but I got a little held up, you see."

Alice looks like she's barely holding back her own laughter when she replies with, "Oh, that's perfectly fine, Lily. We haven't been studying, anyway." Lily fights down the urge to roll her eyes — of course they haven't; if Lily wasn't in their dorm, they'd probably be scouting for boys already.

"Oh, so what have you spent your time doing?"

Lily raises a crimson eyebrow but she isn't really paying attention to what her friends are saying. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see James Potter looking at her unabashedly.

Normally, she's turn and give him the famous Evans glare, but now, thinking of the way his hands felt wrapped around her, and the surprising softness of her lips, she blushes. "What . . . are you . . . blushing about, Lily?" Marlene asks in an all-too-innocent tone, not even bothering to contain her giggles this time around.

"Oh — you know, this and that," Lily mutters uncomfortably aware of Potter's (James') eyes still on hers. She barely resists the urge to look at him full on. They can't know that she kissed Potter — they'd never, ever, let her hear the end of that, she knows this for sure. "So, anyway, let's get to studying? Let me just close the window."

As she moves to close the window, she notices that it gives a spectacular view of the courtyard. The same courtyard she'd been sitting in just ten minutes ago. The same courtyard that she'd kissed James Potter in. And, with a foreboding sense of dread, she realizes that the window had been closed when she left.

She turns around, blushing all the more — torn between embarrassment and fury — and glares at her friends. "That — you didn't — I don't — "

Alice sighs like Lily is an exceptional difficult toddler. "Listen, Lily Evans. You are not going to say that you didn't kiss James Potter, because that is a lie. You are also not going to say that you felt nothing, because that is also a lie. Correct?"

"It was — " Lily begins, although she has no way of finishing it without lying. Because she did feel something with the kiss — it felt like her heart had simultaneously stopped and sped up, it felt like her insides were on fire, it felt . . . natural. "I — I'll be in the dorm." She needs to think this true because Lily Evans has a lot of goals and ambitions, but snogging James Potter is not one of them — although, if every kiss is like the first, she wouldn't mind —

No, she hates James. She hates —

But she doesn't —

Love is confusion. She should just stick to Jane Austen novels.

.

James' conversation with his friends goes a lot smoother.

James: "I kissed Lily."

Sirius: "Did she kiss you back?"

James: "Of course! She actually kissed me!"

Sirius: " . . . and there was no love potion involved, Prongs? There's a first time for everything."

Remus: "That's really good for you, James. I notice that she has been warming up to you lately . . . "

Peter: "I wonder if there's any pie left in the kitchens . . . "

Sirius: "Jily is so on!"

Remus: "Jily? Really? Could you not have come up with a better nickname than that?"

Sirius: "In my defense, it was either Jily or Lames, okay?"

.

When she gets upstairs, she sees a book on her bed: How To Know When You're In Love With Your Sworn Enemy.

She throws the book against the wall, because she is not, under any circumstances, in love with James Potter.

LILY MARIE POTTER is scrawled in her notebooks whenever she isn't paying attention but shh —

.

The next day at breakfast, he smiles at her and she feels that same feeling — the lightheaded and dizzy and bubbly feeling — again and she smiles back and idly wonders if James Potter was always this good looking.

"So — did you enjoy my book?" Marlene asks coyly, a smug smirk firmly implanted on her face. Lily flicks the remnants of her eggs at her.

"Shut up, Lene," she groans. "I'm not in love with him, okay?"

.

(She says yes the next time he asks her to go to Hogsmeade with him.

She can practically feel Marlene's smug smirk from across the room.)

.

fin.

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