foreverjily:

Requested by: @shitlordanakin

Pairing: James x Lily
Word count: 491
Summary: James and Lily are alone in the common room late on night, and Lily’s mind is wandering
Rating: K

Lily Evans was many things. Friend, prefect, head girl, daughter, sister (if reluctantly) but one thing she wasn’t, despite how many friends and innocent first-years wrongly thought so, was James Potter’s girlfriend. 

No. Just no. That’s why, that October night in the common room when she was snuggled close to James’ side on the sofa in front of the fireplace, she made a point of keeping her eyes open and her mind off his hand running up and down her arm. The grandfather had long clock struck half 11 when Marlene announced she was going off to bed, leaving James and Lily alone in the common room (everyone else had left hours earlier, when the moon was still low on the deep blue night sky).

“I’’m surprised you’re still awake.” Lily turned her head slightly, looking at James.

“Why?” 

“Well, because you’re never awake past 9pm.”

“You’ve been talking to Sirius again.” He played with the hem of her sweatshirt.

“No. I know you, and you’ve been awake later than the first years exactly once since the term started.” Lily smiled, and tried to hinder her mind from wandering to that other night. 

“Well maybe you’re a good entertainer, Evans.” Lily nearly flinched, she’d gotten so used to him calling her Lily, Lils even, that the last name sounded strangely formal. “Keeping me on my toes.”
He slid his hand down next to hers, letting their fingers intertwine. They’d held hands before. He’d grabbed her hand helping her off the sofa, or dragging her along to do merlin knew what. She’s taken his hand in hers to stop him doing something stupid. He’d slid his hand into hers so she wouldn’t pull her wand out at the Slytherins who called after her in the hallways. This was different. It didn’t have a purpose. And it freaked her out, while simultaneously feeling weirdly nice. She couldn’t help the laugh that slipped from her lips. She immediately regretted it when James moved his hand away from hers.

“Oh, Are you ticklish?” he said apologetically. 

If she said she wasn’t, she’d have to explain why she’d laughed. If she said she was, his hand would stay rested behind her on the cushion. 

“No. You just caught me by surprise.”

“Oh, okay.”
Without looking, she knew he was blushing. His voice changed when he blushed, became more boy-like. A year ago, she wouldn’t have believed James Potter to be able to blush, now she couldn’t picture the tall boy without at least a hint to redness on his earlobes at any time. His hand slid into hers again, fingers stroking her bruised knuckles.

“It’ll be alright,” he promised. “And if it’s not, I’ll make it alright.” 

His lips pressed gently against the top of her head. She wanted to pretend her heart didn’t skip a beat, her lips didn’t curl into a smile, her body didn’t relax into his. Not his girlfriend.

ripjily:

So I saw a post about how James Potter would never grow old and had an overwhelming feeling of “FIGHT ME”, and then I realized that the fandom never talks about what it would be like if he grew old, they just say they’re sad he didn’t…so here are elderly James Potter headcanons.

• He’s super, super vivacious. It’s like he never ages except he clearly does because hair is gray and he has a cane and has some back problems. But he never loses his zest for life.
• He goes to equality protests with the rest of the Marauders (which DOES include Lily) all the time, and tells the leaders that “he’ll hit anyone with a cane”.
• Which he would, because he has
• He fantasized about getting a sword installed in the cane. He once spent twenty minutes looking up places to do that, only to have Lily confront him later with a “please get me a sword, too”
• So he did, and sometimes they do battles in the front yard until something happens to someone’s back.
• James is that old guy that goes to quidditch matches all the time. The Chudley Cannons are in town? Whup, let’s go. He has this thing where he screams at the teams and waves his cane and the players never mind because it’s just like “it’s that Potter fellow again”
• Whenever he sees teams, he’ll make them sign two things: his apparel for them and a shirt that he will intentionally buy the week before and keep the receipt so he can prove he saw them recently. 
• He and Sirius have a thing where they’re in contest for “coolest grandparents”, and he wants to prove that he really is the coolest by having a shirt he bought “last week, my clone, see?
• He always calls James his clone because the two of them find it hilarious, and then he asks James about the Marauders and James will tell him stories
• He has inside jokes with all his grandkids.
• Him and Lily Luna have a contest to see who can unintentionally wreck the Potters’ front yard the most because they both kill every growing thing (but they try!), so whenever he greets her, he says, “wreck any yards recently?”
• Albus Severus is almost done memorizing the key sections of Hogwarts: A History so James and Albus have battles with memorized sections of Hogwarts: A History against Quidditch Through the Ages. They always have some joking talk about it when Albus arrives so they can both get their game up.
• They like to do weird accents as they do them, as well.
• Harry records all of these and sends them to Hermione and Ron because “hey look, Hermione, someone’s actually reading Hogwarts: A History”
• James’ messy hair never balds, it only goes gray. 
• Although he HAS suggested to Lily that he follow in his father’s footsteps an make a magical hair dye: one for Lily and him to share, because she’s graying too. It’s very visible since she almost never puts her hair up.
• She laughs and says she’d rather him share with Sirius.
• The people at the Muggle grocery store love him, because he sits there and tells all his wizarding stories for hours and no one can tell if he’s serious or not, but he’s such a good storyteller that it doesn’t matter.
• Whenever Harry and his kids come over he tries to help Lily bake something. It always turns out to be a disaster, but it always means he has a new story to tell them.
• He gives the grandkids gifts every time they visit. The real question is who will get a prank gift and who gets a real gift. 
• He does a similar thing with candy dishes by filling all of them with Bertie Botts. 
• He still rides out on his broom whenever he can.
• He has an old leather recliner. Because yes, of course he does.
• The Marauders meet up every week. They talk and they do projects and basically are an entourage at this point.
• Remus decided to grow a beard, which ends up looking like a few silly little wisps on his chin that bother all of them. Peter one day comments about how easy it would be to get rid of it in his sleep and so Sirius and James create a plan to hack it off
• (a plan that never works, because Lily tells him the next day and Remus decides to cut it off before Sirius and James can)
• James and Lily talk every single night and spend time together every single day. They never, ever run out of things to talk about.
• They have a chore rotation.
• Every night, before they go to sleep, he makes tea for Lily and himself (she likes chamomile with honey, his favorite changes every week). It’s the one thing he can cook besides Indian food, they food he grew up with, without entirely messing it up.
• He goes to sleep at nine thirty so he can get sleep and have a great day tomorrow, too, because he learned that you CAN be too tired to enjoy life, and he doesn’t want to waste a minute of it.
• He focuses a lot on experiences and friendships and relationships now, and he feels so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people that he loves, especially after the war.
• He went to treatment for PTSD after it was over. Harry had to, too, but there are nights when Harry wakes up screaming and James and Lily are there to comfort him and calm him down because they know what it’s like and they love him more than anything else in the world.
• James Potter lives a beautiful life as an older man and no one can tell me otherwise.

poppypomfrey:

friendly reminder: also known as the day remus ‘i was happier than i had ever been in my life’ lupin and sirius ‘still not a day goes by that i don’t miss your dad’ black lost everything