A/N: These are getting progressively longer. Thanks to everybody who's read (and reviewed) so far; you are all fantastic! ALSO: WE ARE DOING A LILY/JAMES SECRET SANTA! If you are at all interested, find us over at jilysecretsanta . tumblr . com! We hope to see you there! :)

L/J: 13, Chocolate (Mina)

James doesn't notice that something's off until he's eaten breakfast, gone through his first class, and stepped into the corridor. At first, it's a nagging itch at the side of his brain—what is missing?

He's not missing his trousers, his shoes match today, he's got his wand and his bag and his glasses; he did his essay for Arithmancy; he's brushed his teeth this morning, tried to straighten his hair. What is it? he thinks, stopping in the middle of the hall. A third year bumps into him but James doesn't mind; he stands there, looking around, like whatever is driving him mad will appear from the air and resolve this. Maybe if he doesn't move, it'll come to him quicker.

And then he sees a tall girl with long blonde hair and a shorter girl with a mess of brown hair and it's the best feeling of realization, seeing them—oh. And then he's almost ashamed of himself because how could he forget?

"Dorcas!" he calls, raising his hand to wave at them above the crowd. "Siobhan! Where's Lily?"

Siobhan laughs, calls back, "She's got a case of Bloody Fanny! Check the common room!"

Well, this will be dangerous. He waves a thanks at them and heads in the opposite direction. If he hurries, he's got just enough time before his next class to swing by the Kitchens and the Hospital Wing.

It's like stalking a hungry, tired, angry lioness. He creeps into the common room to find her in an armchair in the corner, buried in blankets and reading a book. Her hair is rumpled and her too-large sweater is falling off her shoulder and she is beautiful and dangerous all at once. James approaches her slowly, careful not to startle her.

She looks up, sees him, and returns to her book. "Go away."

"No can do."

"I'm on the rag."

"I know."

"I hate you."

"I know that, too." He dares closer, kneels in front of her, and puts his hand on her knee, even though she is most likely about to kick him in the face, even though the last time he touched her was two months ago and she pushed him away.

(Not like he has been counting. He hasn't.)

But she doesn't kick him or smack him or move at all, really, except to narrow her eyes the slightest bit. She's giving him a chance.

"I brought you some things," he says. He reaches over to pull his bag onto his lap, takes out a square tin and hands it to her. After putting her book on the table, she opens the tin, stares; he can smell the still-warm squares of chocolate fudge, hopes the way she leans in to breathe them in means that she likes them.

He also passes over a thermos full of hot soup—his Plan B—and a small glass bottle of a purple potion that Madame Pomfrey swore by.

Lily takes it all without comment, without reacting to anything, really, and when he closes his bag and looks up to see her getting teary-eyed, he panics. It's not what he expected. It's not what he expected, at all, and now he's made her cry—what was he thinking—

She must see it on his face. "No, I'm sorry, it's just…" She waves a hand at him, motioning to the collection she has on her lap. "I'm just—"

"No need to say anything, Evans." He stands, rubs his hands together, rumples his hair, adjusts his bag strap—tries to do anything but look at her, which fails. Her eyelashes clump together, small damp points that lie against her freckles when she blinks, and that one small thing gives him the stupid bravery to lean in to her and press a kiss to her forehead. To her credit, she doesn't pull away, or injure him, only looks up at him with those wide green eyes.

"I'll be heading off now," he says, straightening, taking a few steps back. "Feel better, Evans?"

He does not imagine her leaning forward in her blanket nest, doesn't imagine her glance down at the tin of chocolates and bite her lip. Eventually she says, "Wait, Potter. Can you just sit with me? For a while?"

And James smiles. "Yeah. Sure. Want to move to the sofa?"

She nods. He drops his bag under the table and helps her migrate her blanket nest and things to one of the larger sofas near the window. Together they sit in a nice silence, eating fudge, and James does not imagine—he pinches himself on the leg, discreetly, twice, just to make sure—her leaning her head on his shoulder and whispering, "Thanks."

L/J: 14, Hush (Zay)

"Honestly, Lily, I didn't mean anything by it—"

"LIAR!" Lily roars, picking up the closest object in her reach, a couple of pillows from the common room sofa, and chucking them at James as hard as she can. "You're a LIAR, James Potter! You did mean something by it!"

He dodges the pillows easily, tries to get closer to her. "Lily, can I please just explain?"

"Explain what?" she shouted. "Explain why you told Mary Macdonald that you were excited to have 'caught' me? Like I was a bird and you were a hunter and this whole "fancying me" thing really was some sort of sick game you invented one fine day to screw with my head?"

"Lily, it was stupid phrasing, can we please just—"

"The stupid phrasing I could have forgiven, James, but then you went and told Sirius, while I was in earshot, that 'the broad did protest too much'?"

"I didn't know you were listening."

"That just makes it worse!" She grabs another pillow, hurls it at his head. "Honestly, how was that supposed to make me feel?"

"I made a mistake, Lily." He picks up the pillows, throws them across the room so she doesn't have access to more ammunition. "Can I explain?"

"No!"

Now she's crying, crying hard, her hair a wild lioness's mane, sticking in places to her tear-stained face, her cheeks red and blotchy. She paces, still crying, and James risks coming towards her, gently gathering her up and hugging her close.

"Hush, Lils, it's okay," he says. "Don't cry. Shhhh."

But suddenly, she bursts out from his hug, pushing him away from her. She's in a towering rage, even angrier than before, her eyes dangerous.

"Don't you dare tell me to 'hush' James Potter," she snarls. "I mean, this is exactly what I'm talking about!"

"What are you talking about?!"

She wipes her face as more tears rush down to replace them. She tries to calm down a little, but her breathing is still hard and heavy and her eyes are shiny, raw.

"Look, it was a risk, deciding to date you," she says, all shaky and honest. "I mean, I thought you'd changed, I thought I'd changed, I thought we could make something work. You…you did, you won me over, all right? I thought we had something good. And then I hear you being so nonchalant, like you don't care, like this was a game and I was the prize. And now, when I'm trying to show you how I feel, you tell me to hush, you tell me to stop crying, like you can't be bothered to know what's really going through my head."

Relieved that she's using words rather than tears, he takes her hand and sits her down on the couch with him.

"What you heard me say to Sirius, that was a mistake," he says. "I mean, here I am, in this amazing new relationship, the one I'd always wanted but never thought I could have, and it turns out better than I could have imagined. Sirius…is not the type to understand such a relationship. He's my best mate and all, but especially in a public place, I couldn't exactly tell him that I thought you were…well, my soulmate. He wouldn't get it."

He takes a deep breath, runs his hand through his hair. "As for Mary, you heard me out of context. I was telling her that you were just the most amazing catch, and I was so lucky, because I couldn't believe, still, that you really did want to go out with me. It was poorly phrased, and I'm sorry."

She sighs, gently strokes his cheek, her eyes smoldering with affection. "That's really sweet and all…but you do realize it's all bullshit, don't you?"

He looks gobsmacked, so she smiles a watery smile, wipes away the last of the tears and says, "Look, I don't want to be the girl that you hide, or that is too good for you. If you think I'm your soulmate, then don't be embarrassed, tell your friends. Tell them that this is real for you - because it's real for me too, and I don't want that to be a secret. And…I'm flattered and everything, but I'm not all that amazing. I'm as flawed as anyone else. You're lucky to have me, maybe, but you forget that I'm lucky to have you, and you should be able to believe that we're dating, because we've grown up and we like each other and this is working.

"I just want you to be able to know the real me, the one who adores you but also screams and cries and misunderstands things," she says. "I don't want to be this perfect creature you keep in the closet because you're afraid no one will get it. I want you to listen to me instead of assuming you know what's best for me."

"I'm sorry," is all he can say, as genuinely as he's ever said anything, holding her gaze so that she knows he's for real. "It's just…this is still new to me. I don't know how it's going to go."

"Neither do I. So let's find out. But as equals, okay?"

He kisses her then, tasting the salt from her tears on her lips, and he holds her close, drinking her in. This thing they have is so new, so good, that he's almost afraid of it, because he doesn't want to screw it up. He's spent so long thinking that he knows her, and now he finds that he doesn't - and she's both less and more than who he thought she was.

But he likes it better that way, he figures, as she breaks the kiss and runs upstairs to get her homework. He likes that she's still full of secrets and dark corners and mystery. He likes that there's more to know. He wants to know her, bit by bit. He wants this to last.

So he breaks the kiss and smiles his radiant smile. "Deal," he says.

L/J: 15, Wonderland (Mina)

James's father dies. It's three o'clock on a Tuesday and James doesn't know how to process anything, so he skips out on the meeting he's supposed to be having with his mother and Dumbledore, goes outside, and sits against the tree in front of the lake. The cold October air raises goosebumps on his arms. His shirt is too thin and he's getting nipply and people try to talk to him but he doesn't know what to say—what is there to say? That it was too sudden, too unexpected? That he feels like his chest is caving in? That his father was the kind of man James wanted to grow up to be, and that he doesn't know what to do now that he's alone?

They find him after a while; he hears them before they see him, he figures. He expected Dumbledore and his mother, not his best friend and his unrequited-lady-love, and he flinches away automatically. They can't see him like this. He pulls at his glasses and swipes at his eyes and listens to their familiar bickering to anchor him.

"I'm telling you, Lily. He's going to want to be left alone."

"Sod off."

"You wait. Known the bloke for six years and yet you doubt."

"…James?"

He turns, attempts a smile. His first name. Lily smiles back at him, and Sirius pushes past her with a roll of his eyes to sit on the ground next to James.

"You want us to leave?" Sirius asks.

"No," James says, patting the space on his other side for Lily to sit as well. She sits closer to him than he'd expected, and it's nice, the warmth of them, in a way that doesn't make him want to sink to the bottom of the lake and cry all day. He motions to the book in Lily's hand, ragged and dog-eared and worn. "What's that?"

Lily blushes, runs her fingers over the faded lettering on the cover: Alice in Wonderland. "After my dad died," she says, looking up at him, biting her lip. He nods at her to continue. "I used to read his old books all the time, like if I kept reading them I'd find the same things in them that he did, that I'd keep finding pieces of him, you know? I didn't, really. But this is the one book he'd read to me all the time, so I thought—it's probably stupid—"

"No, hey." James shimmies lower against the tree, gets comfortable in the warm, safe middle between Lily and Sirius. Sirius unwraps his scarf and tosses it in James's lap, a tangle of red and gold, and James keeps it there for something to do with his hands, tangling it over and over until the tightness in his throat fades. He nudges Lily with his elbow. "Read some?"

Head down, pink-cheeked, she turns to the first page and starts reading. He's heard the story before. Alice drops into Wonderland, talks with the flowers, trips on some drugs; instead of following Alice, he listens to her words, feels the low rhythm of her speech against her arm pressed against his. Even Sirius stills, caught, and he's never been more thankful for the two of them, how they seem to always know what he needs.