Priori Incantatem [HARRY POTTER FANFICTION]

Chapter 21: Milestones

Chapter 21: Milestones

James led Lily back to the castle, slightly bemused by his own good fortune and completely unable to keep the blissful grin from his face. He had never thought the day Lily Evans kissed him for all the world to see and changed her mind about going out with him would come. Still, he did not intend to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth, especially since he was feeling better than he could ever remember feeling in his entire life.

As usual, there was a party in the Gryffindor common room after the match to celebrate the Gryffindor victory. Sirius and Peter went to the kitchens and brought back as much food and drink as they could carry, and the Gryffindors settled in to party until Professor McGonagall broke it up.

James and Lily spent most of the party together, sitting on one of the overstuffed sofas in the common room. Mostly they talked and laughed with each other and the various friends who came and went, leaving the snogging displays to Frank and Alice, who seemed, judging by the ardour of their snogging, to be inordinately pleased with each other.

James couldn't fathom what had happened between breakfast, when Frank had been a bit annoyed with Alice, and now, when they were all over each other. He reckoned that Alice, like loads of girls James had encountered over the years, was really turned on by Quidditch players.

Lily seemed to know something about it; when the couple came up for air long enough to get some pumpkin juice, Lily called out to Alice: "Finally caught that vulture, did you?" Alice just grinned in response and hurried off after Frank. Even when he asked her, Lily wouldn't tell James what that comment had meant.

Many of those who had seen Lily kiss James on the pitch stopped by to rib them both and made sure that everyone in the common room was aware of what had happened.

The worst of the teasing came from Sirius and Morwenna. Sirius, as the primary witness and best friend of one of the involved parties, was in rare form, entertaining the common room with spirited imitations of the pair until Lily hexed him with a well-placed Jelly Legs Jinx and refused to remove it until he promised to behave. James could see that despite all of the ribbing that his best friend was actually extremely happy for him, but even he became annoyed by Sirius' antics eventually and threatened to hex his ears off while Lily had him under the influence of the Jelly Legs.

Morwenna had not witnessed the actual kiss but had heard about it from various sources and came to see for herself if it was true. When she saw Lily and James sitting on the couch, hands clasped, she emitted a shriek and immediately hugged them both. She was a bit smug over the whole thing really, absolutely delighted to have been right about the pair of them, as she pointed out more than once. Lily was seriously considering trying her hand at the Jelly Legs Jinx again.

Apart from the incidents with Morwenna and Sirius, Lily felt that she was actually handling this relationship business quite well. She had been immensely relieved that James hadn't wanted to put on a snogging display for all the common room to see and seemed content to hold her hand while they talked and laughed together and with other people. More than content actually; he had an almost comical expression of bliss on his face.

The moment that Lily had been most proud of had been when Dorcas had caught up with her and James shortly after the match. As she played for the team, Dorcas had quite naturally been on the pitch at the time and had witnessed the kiss and she had come to ask them, meaning Lily, what they were about.

And Lily had taken a deep breath, squeezed James' hand a bit more tightly, and had uttered the sentence she had never thought to say in her whole life: "James and I are seeing each other."

Once she'd said it out loud, it was actually a relief to have it out in the open. Of course, this made the whole thing a bit more real, which was frightening, but it was less frightening than she'd thought it'd be, which probably had a great deal to do with James' hand holding hers. Lily had actually been lightheaded with the tangle of emotions that crossed her consciousness at that point: fear, relief, pride, happiness, and embarrassment. It was a heady experience.