〖fuck what your father says, oh I'm throwing stones at your windowpane...〗

♬𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 ~ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘴 ♬

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Lily should have been asleep. She'd tried to allow the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness swallow her whole and let her sail away in a dream but to no avail.

It must have been past midnight when the soft rapping on her window began. At first she tried to block it out, blaming the wind, she should have known that wind was pretty hard to come by in late summer.

The tapping persisted and Lily was forced to rise, peering out her window to see James Potter throwing little pebbles from her driveway at the window.
Suppressing a giggle she pressed her finger to her lips gesturing for him to wait there.

The thing with James Potter was that he often had an eye for trouble. He'd been labelled a marauder by their teachers accordingly. Unfortunately, that also gave him an eye for things that would probably get him murdered.
In true romcom style, Lily's father was the headteacher of their school and had extremely one-sided views on boys (that wasn't to say that he wasn't a kind and gentle man; just that his kindness and gentleness seemed to go on hiatus when Lily had boys over). He especially had an issue with James. Every chance that boy got to rile up his head teacher, he took which only made her father dislike him more. Lily didn't doubt that her father would faint if he were to find out that she was in dating with the same boy he spent no end grumbling about at mealtimes.

And so that left James Potter throwing stones at her window. There were a couple of stages in between –most involving trouble she didn't care to recall without a dreamy smile and cheeks pinked with embarrassment– but here he was, eyes twinkling trouble that she could see even from her window.

It didn't take Lily long for her to put a pair of trainers on; pull one of his hoodies over her head (she kept a small stash of them behind her wardrobe) and tip toe down the stairs and out the door.

"I told you to stop throwing stones! You'll smash my window if you throw them too hard!"

James grinned as he watched her slip out her front door, still holding in a grin as she jogged towards him, hissing profanity as she went.

"How else would you know I was here? I can't exactly knock! 'Oh yes, hello Mr Evans, it's your favourite student! Nice to see you too, now if you don't mind I'm going to whisk your little girl off on a romantic tryst while you sleep in your unsuspecting bed!'"

Lily laughed, finally reaching him and wrapping her arms around his middle, tilting her chin up to watch him.
"This is not a tryst, you dolt!"

James stumbled backwards, pulling Lily with him, they both began falling backwards clumsily out the drive.
"You wound me, Evans!"

She hit his chest lightly, refusing to gratify his melodrama with a response, instead she twisted out his grasp and pulled him out the gate and into the world.

They walked arm in arm, surrounded by the warm, early September air and the pools of amber light from the lampposts.

"Where is it we're even going?" Lily asked after a while of aimless strolling.

"Oh you wanted to go somewhere?"

She bumped his shoulder, "you're the one that got me out here– I assumed you had something in mind?"

James chuckled, "fine. You trust me?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Well, tough shit. Let's go." And without much further ado, he proceeded to pull Lily by the hand, setting a pace that really was a little loud for the middle of the night.

They didn't take long to reach James' desired destination. It didn't look like much at face value, they'd gotten to the shore of the beach at the end of a village and found themselves next to a desolate building overlooking the pier.

"I still don't trust you. What's your play here?"

James glanced down at her, a smirk on his lips. If Lily had looked up at him in that moment then she would have caught his expression. An expression of pure blissful love as he gazed at the way her silky hair gleamed in the moonlight.

But instead of telling her how beautiful she was, and how much he loved her, James decided to gesture up to the drainpipe of the desolate building.
"Climb. Trust me it's worth it."

Lily's jaw might have hit the floor if it hadn't been for the sincere look he was giving her, like he genuinely thought she could scale a building like it was common place.

"Is that why you asked if I trusted you?"

"It's part of the reason."

"Fine. But if I fall then my arse will be in your face."

James smirked, "damn, I should have buttered up the drain pipe."

"They don't call you a marauder for nothing do they? You insufferable lump!"

"Oh tell me how you really feel, why don't you!"

The question was not meant to sound so loaded but Lily blushed anyway and didn't answer him, instead she climbed...

It wasn't often that James' idea of fun found itself of the right side of the rules (or the law), but this was one of his very best ideas. The rooftop was quiet, romantic and there was the most perfect view of the early sunrise over the water.
Lily pulled herself up onto the flat roof and perched on the edge, swinging her legs off the side, James joined her a second later and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling off his hoodie and handing it to her.

"You ever come up here with anyone else?" She asked, slipping his hoodie over her head, fighting the urge to inhale the smell of him wrapped around her shoulders.

Lily felt James shake his head.
"I come up here alone sometimes. To think things over, to calm down, to be melancholy. But I've never taken anyone else up here before. You'd be the first."

The way he refused to look at her as he spoke told Lily that this was more intimate that he was letting on.
"What is it about here? Why show me now?"

James didn't answer.

"Jay?"

"It's embarrassing."

"No it's not. You can tell me," Lily cooed, slipping out from underneath his arm and taking him by the chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers.
Lily had the most comforting eyes, they were impossible to look into without wanting to spill all your secrets. They were just so very safe.

"You really want to know?"

She nodded.

"Well I first found this place when I was about fifteen and I'd spend nearly every night that I couldn't sleep watching the sunrise, wondering who else was watching it aside from me. There's something intimate about sharing a sunrise, the world feels like it's on pause for a moment and nothing else exists apart from you and the sun. So I decided that one day, whenever that may be, that I'd bring someone up here that I wanted to share a sunset with. I wanted to bring the one here. And I didn't want to scare you off by saying that. I just wanted to share the sunrise with you."

James gazed into her eyes as he spoke, searching for something. Lily gazed back and found it: conformation. She didn't really know why, she didn't really know if it was possible to know so soon, but somehow she knew. This gorgeous boy, this troublemaker, he was the one.

"I...I love you," she breathed, "I think I really love you."

It turns out James was right about the time stopping when the sun rose. Nothing breathed apart from them. Nothing moved. Everything was frozen as they found each other's eyes.

"Woah, Lily. I love you too."

Her hand was still holding onto his chin which she used to pull him forward and kiss him, her hand switching to cup his jaw while the other settled in his hair. They hadn't kissed that many times, usually just stolen kisses in empty corridors, praying her father didn't find them, but now she really kissed him and it became clear that there really was no one else. She loved him. Fuck what her father says.

"Thank you," Lily whispered into his lips, resting her forehead against James' and brushing their noses together.

"For what?"

"Sharing that sunset with me. I'll never see one quite like it again."

James grinned and held her tightly, "that's the best bit of sunsets. One is never exactly the same as the other. So every single one we see is unique, but this one is ours. And we can keep it forever."

James took Lily back home just as dawn had finished breaking, with just enough time to slip into bed and pretend she'd been there all along. That morning while she sat at the breakfast table Lily couldn't stop thinking about what James had said to her and what she'd said back. It surprised her how much she meant it.

Her mother winked at her over the breakfast table, pulling her out of her stupor and it took her nearly an hour to realise exactly why: she was still wearing James' hoodie.

Lily would go on to tell her father about James one day. It would go on to be the first time he didn't throw a fit at the news she was dating a boy.
At first she would merely rejoice in the fact she wouldnt have to sit through another cross examination of her new boyfriend; but it would be three years until she actually asked her father why he wasn't upset to find out she was dating the troublemaker of his school. His answer was simple: James is clumsy, darling.

It was a further three years later, on her wedding day as her father gave his speech that she found out the full story...
The first time James had tried to get Lily's attention by throwing stones at her window, he'd hit the wrong one first and woken Lily's father. Since that night, he would watch them go on adventure after adventure when they thought nobody was watching. He watched them fall in love. And after all, that's really all he could ask for, but it didn't really matter what he said.

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not really a fan of this but I love the song so...