Jily One Shots

Cheaters

In the dead of the night in a dark corner a figure rocks back and forth with tiny sniffles. His hair has grown long and the wild locks are disturbed by his hand constantly running through them. Footsteps sound from the girl's staircase and the fire crackles.

A sleepy Lily collapses in the armchair closest to the fire and wraps one of the thick knitted common room blankets around her shoulders. She had twisted and turned in bed for hours before coming back down. She worked on her charms paper for hours until she had spots in her vision and her headache was like a siren. She hadn't noticed Potter until she was retiring to her dormitory. He was so oddly quiet. But she had been so tired. 

She turns her head to that same corner now as his face passed through her mind. And she notices some movement on the floor next to the chair Potter was sitting so silently before. 

Her heart drums a little as she tip toes toward the figure. She does want to intrude but she is compelled to peak around the corner. 

Moonlight sprawls across the half of his face revealing his normally handsome face cracked in sorrow. He burrows his face in his hands and angrily ruffles his hair. 

Potter?

A gasp escapes her throat and his face whips around toward her.

Violently embarrassed for intruding she apologizes, "I-"

"Oh! I thought I was alone..."

Her mouth falls shut and her cheeks are a Griffindor red. "S-sorry I will just go back to..." Potter turns himself away to wipe his new tears from his cheeks. He falls back onto the cushions on the window sill, one of his hands ripping through his tangled locks. 

Lily stands awkwardly fighting her surprising instinct to go to his side. "I'm fine Evans," he mutters unconvincingly. 

"You have an odd way of showing it," she retorts gently as she sits on the window sill an arms length away from his lanky form. They sit in chilled silence for what seems like an eternity.

James whispers with betrayal on his tongue, "I got a letter from my Father. He is leaving us."

The weight of the silence was almost unbearable for her but she had to keep it on her shoulders to stop it from crushing him.

"For some other woman. Another family."

With a silent realization that James had been here, all alone, sobbing in the dark, Lily moves toward him and takes his hand in hers. He slowly leans his head on her shoulder and sniffles again. She rubs her thumb around his palm, cradling his hand with both of hers. It is so natural.

They don't say anything else. As the moon and the stars pass overhead they relaxed in that warm windowsill in each other's presence. 

When the sun painted streaks of orange and pink in the sky Lily turns to find James asleep with his mouth open a little. She admires his long black eyelashes that gently brush his cheek bones. 

Secretly she lets her lips leave a kiss on his forehead and she wraps her blanket around him before she sneaks back to bed. Let that memory be only for the starlight sky. 

They didn't start dating then or even become friends. What happened right there was something neither of them could quite describe. It was one of those moments where they both would stay up at night thinking about. One of the ones they would see reflected in a dark night. 

It was a single shared moment they kept to themselves until they died.