"Love magic me, Lily."

Without a second of hesitation, Lily Potter leaned forward, putting her hands on the sides of James Potter's face so that her fingers were up in his hair and her palms were cupping his jaw and she kissed his mouth and the moment their skins touched it happened.

In a second it happened.

In a blaze of bright white light that seemed hours long and like a single electric shock passed between the touch of two static-charged fingers.

"I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things... we can do the tango, just for two... I can serenade and gently play on your heart strings, be your Valentino, just for youuuuuu...."

Sirius's voice rang out as the memory came into focus, accompanied by the beat of crunching grass beneath four sets of walking feet. A bird let out a cry far across the field from where they walked through the woods, nearly shoulder to shoulder. Except for Sirius, who was draped dramatically over Remus's shoulders, shouting/singing loudly into the tops of the trees, howling out the lyrics as he clung onto his husband.

"Hey boy where do you get it from? Hey boyyy where did you goooo? ....I learned my passion at the good old-fashioned school of loverboys!" He ended his serenade with a lick across the length of Remus's scar - the one which ran the length from one temple to the jaw on the other side, directly across his nose.

"Enough about your dirty, dirty sex lives!" James voice echoed through the memory and he was standing, arms out, presenting the land they'd just explored - the trees, the field, and in the distance the back view of the cottage that Lily and James now lived in. "What do you lot think?"

"We could have a blast, just like back in Hoggywarty-Hogwarts days!" Sirius burst out. "We could camp out sometimes... Go swimming. Skinny dipping."

"Skinny dipping, Evans?" James voice was full of laughter. It was mid-summer, the moon was in the sky - not full, waning quarter, actually, so it wasn't even very bright. They were in the woods, Lily and James, alone, the house small across the field. James's face flushed and he grinned, "You're joking."

But Lily's green eyes flashed seductively and she'd spun about, a playful look on her face, and she'd skipped into the woods, ducking below the treeline, pulling at the bottom hem of her blouse as she went.

"Oh gods, Evans," James had said, and he'd broke into a run following after her, ducking under the trees, too, his fingers fumbling for the buttons of his shirt as he passed by her shoes and stockings, her blouse hanging from a branch... her skirt... her bra, her underpants laying on the shore... and there was a splash and he was kicking off his trousers and pushing down his boxer shorts as he reached the water's edge to see her there, floating in the water, reflecting the stars overhead sho she looked like she was in the middle of a pool of diamonds, her red hair lavender in the moonlight.

He splashed, ungracefully into the water himself, and waded over to her, sinking into the water so that only their shoulders and heads stuck out of it, and he laughed nervously, childishly. It wasn't that he hadn't seen her naked a hundred times by then - this was after they'd been married and trying for a couple months to have a baby, after all, but there was something different about it being outside like this.

She'd laughed and she'd reached over and laid her palm on his bare chest. She bit her lower lip and grinned at him. "I don't have anything to grab on to pull you closer," she whispered, "So you'll have to just come over here yourself."

"There are things you could pull on if you wanted, Evans," he said slyly.

"You're such a toerag," she laughed, eyes sparkling.

"I'm your toerag," he'd answered, coming closer, kissing her as their bodies met, the water washing between them as her chest pressed to his and his hands went 'round her, cupping her bottom as they both kicked their feet under water, their legs bumping against one another. She'd held onto his shoulders, wrapping her arms around his neck for leverage and he'd kissed her throat. "You look like a goddess, Evans," he'd whispered.

And he made her feel like one.

Even doing the most mundane things.

There she was doing dishes the muggle way because it soothed her nerves and reminded her of her mum. She stood on a little wood stool by the sink counter, her arms elbow-deep in lemon-scented dish water, scrubbing with a little yellow sponge... and he'd come up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, his chest against her back, his arms forming a heart around her torso, face in her hair, breathing her in. "Mmm, Evans, you're everything to me," he'd whispered, breath hot against her neck at the crook just where it met her shoulder. "You're the moon..."

And they were dancing on the lawn at Hogwarts during seventh year, laughing as he held her hands and they spun to the point of being dizzy, the moonlight illuminating them. They'd fallen backwards onto the grass, her first and him stumbling as she giggled until he dropped to his knees beside her and rolled so they were head-to-head and staring up at the sliver of moon in the sky. 

"...you're the stars...." he whispered as she moved her hands through dish water.

"There!" Lily pointed into the sky as a streak of light went past. "Did you see it?"

"The wishing star?"

"Yes!" she squealed. "Hurry make a wish."

James stared at her, grinning, watching her lips move, prayer-like.

She glanced over at him when she'd finished. "Did you make one?"

"All of mine already came true, Evans," he answered.

The lemon scent was warm like hot tea. "...and the sun..."

The sun on their face as they waited for Sirius to arrive in Costa Rica the day of his and Remus's wedding, when James and Lily had stolen a few minutes of the tropical weather to stand, pressed against the outer wall of the small room that would serve as the staging area for Sirius to get ready, Lily in that beautiful dress, which James had hiked up to her thigh, his hand on her skin as he kissed her neck, her head thrown back with breathless passion. "James we can't right now," she'd laughed, "He's going to be here any minute."

"Above all people Sirius Black would understand not being able to keep his hands off someone he loves," James groaned. But Lily had laughed and run her hands through his hair and he'd let the dress slide back down over her thighs and he'd kissed her mouth and then her cheek, backing away face flush.

Her eyes burned holes into his own and he could see she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. "Alright, Evans?" he'd asked.

"Continue this later, yeah?" she'd asked, breathless.

He'd nodded, "Oh most definitely."

She'd grinned at him, eyes sparkling.

"How the hell are you so beautiful?" he'd asked.

"I'm really not. You just need better glasses," she told him.

James shook his head, "You'd be beautiful whether I had perfect vision or no vision - you're beautiful inside and it just seeps through your pores and comes out of you like light, Evans."

She'd flushed so hot in the cheeks and he'd grinned at her with that stupid smile, his lip hung up on his tooth.

"Happy Birthday, Evans."

Lily blinked in surprise. "You remembered my birthday?"

"Of course," James replied. "Should be a national holiday, shouldn't it? Evans's Birthday - Gringott's will close and everything. There'll be fireworks and parades --"

It would be a bank holiday? Her birthday? She laughed in spite of herself, with the insight of things that were not known at the time when the scene occurred. 

He was wearing golden snitch-covered pyjamas, the same ones he wore now, just much more worn out and magically sized-up several times. Them and those damned Gryffindor trainers. Those were as true to James's personality as that crooked-tooth smile. But that smile was missing, and she saw it when he smiled then.

"Let me fix it."

"What?"

"Your smile. Let me fix it. Please. It's not right and it's - it's bothering me."

"How is it not right, Evans?" He sat up, crossing his legs as he did, his eyebrow raised, challenging her.

"Your lip doesn't..." she tried to replicate what it usually did, but she couldn't quite bend her mouth that way. James laughed at the imitation. "It's not funny," she said, "It's very much a part of you and everyone's going to notice."

He didn't care if anybody else noticed in the entire world.

It was enough that she noticed.

"Stop talking, Potter," Lily said, leaning close to him.

"Alright."

"Potter."

"Evans."

"For real, shut up. Keep your teeth bared. Good. Now hold still. Gyrari tooth!"

It hurt. It hurt so much but she was there and he reached for her hand and gripped it tight in his own, his fingers squeezing her fingers on the blanket in the space between them. She slid her arms up his chest and over his shoulders... pushing his arms up over his head, her hands wrapping around his wrists against the headboard in her room in the girls dormitories. He stared up at her, breathing hard.

"Alright, Potter?" she asked. the tables turned.

"Alright, Evans," he affirmed, and she'd watched his eyes close and his forehead wrinkle as his mouth fell open as she moved against him...

"Alright," she said, "You can close your mouth now -" and they were back in the hospital wing that night of the gyrari tooth. He closed it and stared at her a moment. "Smile you bloody idiot, I need to make sure I've done it right."

"Well I can't just smile on command, bloody hell, Evans, you'll have to make me smile, won't you?" But oh how it was a struggle not to smile just because of how close to him she was, because her knee touched his knee with only the sheet and both their pyjama legs between them. Practically skin-on-skin, that was. He couldn't believe he was so intimately close to Lily Evans.

She had her arms around his neck, her palms on his bare back... his mouth all over her...

"And how do you propose I do that, then?" Lily in the hospital wing demanded.

"Say you'll go out with me."

"Potter, I've told you a hundred times if I've told you once --"

"Don't stop," Lily begged, and she gripped a hold of his hair so tight that she was almost afraid she might tear it off of his head, but she couldn't risk him going away for even a moment.

He remembered in potions once when Horace Slughorn had melted gold to include drops of it in a potion, how he'd held the little nugget up between his fingers and it had flashed in the light in the classroom, glinting before he dropped it into the little dish over a white-hot flame. They'd watched as the nugget got blurry and then dripped and melted into a tiny pool of red-gold that oozed slowly out of the dish and into the potion, which had spit sparks into the air like shooting stars.

She made him feel like that gold must've felt.

Oozy and hot, dripping and sparking and getting lost inside of the potion for which it had melted.

She dragged her nails across his skin and he groaned.

"God look at you," she'd said the next morning when he'd gotten up and was back-to her, getting dressed, looking down and buttoning his trousers up at his waist. He turned around to look at her, still laying on their bed, tangled in her sheets. "What did I do to you? You've got scratches all over your back." She sounded upset, and was indeed worried she'd actually hurt him in her uncontrolled moments.

"I must look like Remus," James smirked.

"James Charlus Potter, that's not funny, he --" Lily said.

James grinned, "What? The scars are hot, aren't they?" He'd bent down over her, then, kissed her mouth and said in a thick voice that threatened to melt her much the same way as that gold had done, "You can be as rough with me as you like Lily Evans and I'll simper at your feet for more."

"Oh God James."

"You wanna mark me up with scars? Do it. Carve your name into my skin. I'm yours to do what you wish with." He kissed her mouth and was gone - gone to work - leaving her there so acutely aware of the places where he'd been and where he should be and the emptiness of the bed beside her.

And he was holding her hand while they shopped for groceries, carrying the basket as she tucked things into it.

He was singing as he made her breakfast, big loud and booming, accompanied by the sizzling of the omelettes in the pan as he danced about. "Oh let me feel your heartbeat grow faster, faster... Can you feel my love-heat... C'mon sit on my hottttt seaaaat of looooove and tell me how do you feel right after all? I'd like for you and I to go romaaancing - say the word your wish is my command!" 

"Aren't you chipper?" she'd said, coming up behind him. "I should think you'd be tired after last night."

"Tired? No Evans. I'm energized. I'm ready to take on the world. I'm - I'm a gooooood oolllld-fashioned loooover boyyyy!" his voice had raised up into the song at the end of the sentence and she'd laughed as he'd turned and waved the spatula at her, spanking her bum as she passed by for the fridge to get the orange juice out.

"Careful, Mister Potter," she'd said, raising an eyebrow, "Or we won't be eating those omelettes."

"Or we could eat them AND --"

"At the same time? Omelettes are far too wholesome a food for that."

"Are they?" James looked down at the pan. "Huh. I never thought of omelettes as wholesome before. What's a kinky food, then?"

"Definitely chocolate covered strawberries."

He came home with chocolate covered strawberries that night.

She'd laughed, "You're such a toerag."

"But I'm your toerag," he reminded her... and gods it was the way he stared at her, the way he watched her when she laughed, the way he was always right there, a hand held out to catch her or steady her, a watchful eye always making sure she was -- "Alright, Evans?"

"Alright Potter."

James opened his eyes, staring up at her as she drew back from the kiss.

He laughed.

She stared at him.

He was still laughing, his eyes crunched up as he did it and he said, "I hope your love magic sessions with the other lads weren't like THAT."

Her face flushed. "OH my Gods. I've love-magic-sexed you."

James laughed harder and she rolled away onto her back on the mattress. His laughter shook the bed and she kicked her feet, "I did something wrong. Maybe it's because I kissed you instead of held you hand? Maybe that changes how it works, maybe --" 

He sat up and looked at her, grinning that stupid smile. "Evans?"

"Potter?"

"Let's try it again."

"What? The love magic or the sex?"

His eyes sparked. "Yeah."

Lily laughed.

It felt wrong to laugh.

The last forty-eight hours was banging on the door, it seemed... but for a moment at least they both needed a breath of air before the darkness consumed them again.