For my friend ~ mjjmbb

【In which James tells Lily a bedtime story...】

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She was rather cold to say the least before he came.
Her fluffy purple bed-socks provided very minimal heat and protection from the winter weather and the woolly jumper she wore over her pyjamas was neither here nor there.

He, however, fixed everything. He always seemed to have a way to be the answer to all her problems. This time in particular her answer as his arms. His arms pulling her under his shoulder; her head on his chest, his lips in her hair and their dreams shared.

She often tried to embarrass him– calling him her giant teddy bear but it didn't work– largely because of the fact he simply 'didn't do embarrassment', but also because it was impossible to feel anything but pride when she spoke of him that way.

She was always cold when he wasn't there. She felt alone, less tired despite the endless nights of homework. She missed him at the risk of sounding completely codependent on him. Sometimes she was but that didn't, under any circumstances, mean to say that she couldn't do things on her own: she could, but that didn't mean that she was going to. She preferred to have him around. The world didn't seem as scary when he was there to hold her in his arms, to whisper in her ear and to tell her everything would be alright if they just kept holding on.

He was like her anchor. Whenever the world seemed to be spinning too fast he was by her side to make everything okay again. Just a whisper of 'I love you,' or 'everything is going to be okay' could change the world according to her. Everything was less terrifying, less loud, less dangerous.

She pulled him closer, nestling her forehead in the space between his collarbone and shoulder that seemed to be made just for her, the safest place in the world.
"James?" Her voice was muffled from the bedsheets and his chest.

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

She could feel the veins in his neck tightening, she knew he was smiling without having to look.
"Good."
She growled perilously.

"I love you too," came a chuckled reply, thick with sleep. Lily smiled and kissed his shoulder blade wishing that time would stop. If time would stop there was no place in the world she would rather be than in James' four poster bed, surrounded in blankets and tangled in his limbs.

Despite this she felt her mind racing a million miles a second. Random influxes of inspiration hit her and led her away on different trains of thought that refused to slow down. Most days it was the war that kept her awake. The fact that people just like her were being hunted as she spoke and the only reason she was safe was the stone walls of Hogwarts. Other times it was trivial things like Heads Duties and homework and if she was lucky it was both.
It was safe to assume that Lily was somewhat an insomniac of late.
"James? Can you tell me a story?"

"Tell you a..." he sighed a sigh laced with dubiety, "okay."

Lily squeezed him in gratitude and listening to him breathing, cogs turning audibly on his brain.
"Once upon a time there was a beautiful girlfriend named Lily..." he began, the smirk was oozing from his lips and once again Lily didn't have to be looking at him to imagine what he would look like.

"And Lily was absolutely wonderful. She was smart, funny, witty, sarcastic, gorgeous and was wonderfully warm when she cuddled her boyfriend in his bed," she giggled when he gave her a small squeeze, "anyway, Lily had this boyfriend: very handsome bloke, charming, hilarious, athletic—"

She tickled his side, threateningly.

"Oi! Okay, I get it. She had this boyfriend: he was a bit of alright but nothing special.
Now here's where the story begins... Lily often found it difficult to sleep. She would toss and turn and annoy her roommates, pacing around the dorm and around the common room aimlessly– just to pass time really. But what she didn't know was that her very average boyfriend often did the same thing. He would stare at the ceiling until he'd memorised the cracks and he would jog around the castle grounds to pass the time in which he couldn't sleep. They were both easily described as insomniacs, it was impossible for either of them to sleep longer than a few hours a night. Their reasons for wasting time letting their minds run wild was no concern to the story (apart from anything it could dictate whether this little tale took an overly sexual undertone or a rather depressing one) so— OW!"

"I was enjoying the story without the perverted side notes!"

"Noted. There were no perverted side tones but that didn't stop Lily from struggling to sleep.
One night, about a month ago Lily awoke; she'd been having this nightmare– according to her it was reoccurring but she refused to tell her average boyfriend what it was about, insisting that it would ruin all the work he'd put into reducing his rather large pig head (she was ever the lady, this Lily was—"

"What did we say about side notes?"

James made a noise, "we only talked about perverted side notes!"

"Then I'm expanding it."

He chuckled, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back, "you're a bossy little thing aren't you? Where was I?"

"The nightmare," Lily offered, readjusting her position so she could look up at James as he talked.

"Ah yes, now, she didn't want his ego bursting but she was still upset so James probed her, practically begging her to tell him. So she did. And she told him the nightmare was about him: he was being cursed and she couldn't move– all round quite an awful thing to experience– and so whenever she did she would wake in cold sweats with tears running down her cheeks and— why are you looking at me like that?"

Lily smiled at him, "I've never seen your jaw from this angle– it's rather lovely."

James smirked, turning to study her tenderly, "really?"

She hummed, struggling to keep her eyes open, "I want to hear the end of the story. No more interruptions."

"As you please love, on with the story: so, this nightmare had been ruining her sleeping schedule for some weeks. Always the same one, always ending the same way, with her being released from the restraints and running towards her boyfriend but never quite reaching him before she woke up. And when she told him his he hugged her, tightly of course– like he was now– and told her that he was here, and that it wasn't real.
But James often spoke in oxymorons, or perhaps it could be interpreted as plain and simple, utter tripe because whatever came out of James' mouth he saw another in his own dreams.
"Lily didn't know this but the reason James found himself staring at ceilings and jogging round lakes was to avoid a dream that wasn't dissimilar to hers. He was in the dark room, in a house he didn't recognise alone when he heard cries of his girlfriend coming from somewhere distant. And he could follow them, racing out the dark room and into a dark corridor... and another... and another and her screams would not grow louder or fainter. He would always wake up when he reached the point just before insanity. And he'd wake up with the shakes– much like Lily would. And he never quite knew what to do with himself..."

"Is this true?"

"What do you mean, love?"

Lily reached a hand out the blanket and stroked his cheek, "is the dream true?"

He fixed her with a wry smile, "He didn't quite know what to do with himself and so one night when he was up pacing the common room he saw someone else already there, hugging her knees and watching the fire crackle, her purple bed-socks and red and black flannel clashed adorably. He called her name and she jumped, it was evident she had been crying and so he embraced her, telling her it would be alright and that she didn't have to cry. He talked to himself too but she didn't know that. She just held him close to her, or was he holding her close to him? Either which way neither of them had a nightmare that night when they fell back asleep on the sofa.
She was there the previous night and the night after, so was he, until eventually they were there all the time, in the heads common room holding each other and beating the nightmares with each other." He stole a glance at her drooping eyes and contented smile before continuing.
"Eventually they just started sleeping in James' bed rather than dance around each other and sleep on the sofa– James' bed was warmer anyway and he could hold her closer to him on the bed too."

Her eyes were shut fully now and her breathing was deeper and more even.
"Lily and James were both insomniacs to say the least. Neither could really make it through a night on their own without nightmares taking over but with each other everything was different. With each other they could fight off the nightmares and the pain that came with them. They were each other insomniac's cure and neither would change it for the world.
The end."

Her eyelids were closed softly and her lips were slightly parted. Her red hair was in his face but he didn't mind, he simply pulled the curtains around the fourposter and sealed them in their very own sanctuary of silence.

"Goodnight, sweetheart. I love you." He kissed her hair and held her close, letting the comfort of her presence lull him to a dreamless, deep slumber...

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