…until the very end…

hogwarts jily fic tropes i’ll never tire of

the “almost but not quite there” bit in every slowburn enemies-friends-lovers trope that encompasses every good jily fic:

and then, established relationship at hogwarts?? is pretty much

@hogwartsonline​ quidditch | harry potter

(insp.)

@hogwartsonline​ love event | james & lily potter

james x lily

requested by anon

I mean, it’s not too late to start inktober, nine days from the end of it, right?

make me choose — @judeduerte asked: jily or wolfstar?

want one?

It’s the Unmistakable (1/2)

There’s someone puking when Lily runs into the toilets. She’s desperately trying not to cry, her hands are shaking as she kicks open one of the stalls. The toilet lid is already down, and she wills herself not to think about what’s most likely underneath the seat as she plops onto it and rests her head in her hands.

The doors open again, supposedly a friend of the girl whose face is currently in one of the sinks. There’s a rather sympathetic sigh, followed shortly by a ‘ oh Miranda ’. A retch, giggles, the sound of them taking a selfie and then there’s the scuffle of high heels against the marble flooring.

The two of them leave, the doors open and the deafening sound of the bass, mixed with drunken screams and shouts, set Lily’s teeth on edge. The doors close and there’s silence once more, apart from the heavy buzz of the broken air conditioning and the dull echo of the party from behind the toilet’s thin walls.

Lily hates crying. But she can’t help it at a time like this, all she wants is to get out of this hell-hole.

She picks out her phone from her bag and calls her number one on speed dial, but it’s not Mary MacDonald who answers.

“Mary’s phone. James speaking.”

“You’re not Mary,” is the first thing Lily says with a sniffle. She lifts her legs to her chest, leans back against the wall and closes her eyes.

“Nope, thank God. She’s currently um… er, occupied - shall we say - with my flatmate. Did you need her?”

Lily hiccups and that seems to release an avalanche of emotions all at once. She lets out a laugh, and after five seconds there are tears running down her cheeks.

“Wait are you - are you crying?” The poor stranger named James sounds very shocked and concerned.

She breaks off some toilet paper and blows her nose. “No.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Keep reading

Faint Hearts and Fair Ladies

Chapter 16: The Lion King Comes Home

ff.net | ao3

Faint Hearts and Fair Ladies

Chapter Fifteen: Nonsensical Pinning

ff.net | ao3

hold on to your heart.

thank u to @quillandwand for encouraging me to write this even though the concept hurts (and to holly too.)

The door slams. His heart is pounding and what he just said to her is echoing over and over again until everything goes quiet. Numb. And there’s a hole in his chest. He thinks they’ve just broken up.

He waits an hour. Two, three. Keeps thinking she’ll come back, she always comes back when they fight, because she’s lily and they’re both stubborn and ridiculous and he’ll say sorry because he fucked up and spoke too quickly. And she’s too quick to defend herself and they go in circles, but she always comes back and they’re fine.

Except it’s different this time. Because she doesn’t come back.

//

He sits on the bed after the fourth hour, cradling his head in his hands. There’s a broken beer bottle on the ground, and he doesn’t know that if he threw that before or after she left.

He sniffles and cautiously opens her drawer of miscellaneous crap, the one where she put everything and anything she could fit. He needs to hold the things that belong to her and remember its going to be okay.

Except, it’s empty.

She’s emptied it and her keys and cheap perfume and phone charger are all gone. All that’s left are the hand written notes that the two of them wrote to each other.

James, I’ve got to go to work early, but if you want I’ll drop in for dinner tonight. Which is just Chinese on the floor, I know.

Lily, get up. I’ve made breakfast.

There’s a singular photo left behind too, a Polaroid he took at an Italian restaurant. Her hair is messy and colourful against the dim, pale lights and her smile is right there, full and in focus. He aches and it feels as though he’s been shot. He glances towards the door. It’s been 5 hours. Usually she’s back by now.

He picks up the phone with shaky hands.

“What’s hanging, twat?” James exhales as Sirius answers.

“I think we broke up,” he croaks. God, it hurts even more to say it out loud. He’s a mess.

“Fuck. I’m on my way over, mate.”

//

She comes back to pick up her scarf and the rest of her clothes. She leaves the key on the counter. He almost goes to hug her as she leaves, then remembers the hole in his gut. It’s so much more awful when she’s left, but still very much right in front of him.

“I’m sorry, James.” Her eyes are big and sad and the wonder that he fell in love with seems gone. He can feel the guilt of causing that gnawing away at his insides.

“I think it’s a bit too late for apologies.” He grits his teeth. He has no idea why he’s just said that. Maybe it’s because he can’t punch the wall or drink 8 beers in a row again.

She only nods. She pauses for a moment, hesitates, as if she wants to say something more, or kiss him, or suddenly change her mind and decide to stay after all. James starts hoping that she’ll do any of those things. Instead, she just turns around and closes the door again. It’s so much softer this time, but the silence is deafening.

//

The first few weeks are the worst. The boys take turns in making sure he’s okay, bringing beer, and playing the Xbox with him. He cries into Sirius the first couple nights. He lets him.

He knows they go to see Lily and don’t tell him. He’s not angry, he knows they love her just like he does. He just really fucking misses her.

He knows it’s really his fault. He’s the one that said if it’s really that complicated maybe you should just fuck off like you always do!

And she did.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Jim,” Sirius says into the silence when they’re eating Chinese on the floor. Like he used to do with her.

“Fuck off Sirius, I mean, I practically pushed her out that door and locked it myself,”

“Maybe, but she decided not to come back. It doesn’t matter who said what if you both said fucked up shit,”

James lays back so he’s looking at the ceiling.

“Yeah. And now I’ve lost her.”

“James, it will get easier.” Remus puts an arm on his shoulder. Peter puts train on the stereo and James cracks a smile.

“There he is,”

They begin blasting the words to 50 ways to say goodbye.

Suddenly there’s slightly more colour in the world.

//

It’s been almost 4 months and he thinks he might be back on track. He’s punched four holes in the wall and paid for all of them to be fixed, had a week without showering and did the thing he promised himself he wouldn’t do. Paint. Because Lily always said he was amazing at it and the colour green reminds him of her. Things are a little more in sync and he doesn’t think about her every day. Sometimes, he considers calling her and asking her to come and get coffee with him. Just so there’s last piece of closure. He thinks about it, staring at her number until the digits blur together.

Then, one night, he and the boys get fucking smashed.

They’re at some club in the city and Sirius definitely intended for James to end up hooking up with some hot chick, but instead he has four tequila shots too many and ends up looking at her blurred out number again, head pounding like it was the night they broke up.

“Lily? God I miss you,” He thinks he’s talking to voicemail, and he knows it’s nonsensical, but there’s been words in his throat he’s been choking on for months on end. He needs it to end.

“I miss how you would kick Sirius off the couch and always ate your veggies first when we had meals together. I miss you sitting on the countertop eating cereal at 4am cuz you couldn’t sleep and I miss your fucking snoring, would you believe­-”He stops, slurring.

“I guess, I’m trying to say that I fucked up. Bad. I know it, you know it, but god, Lil…you were the best thing I ever had.”

She breathes down the line and a single tear slides down her cheek.

His eyes widen. “Lil?”

She hangs up.

//

Even against Remus’ better judgement, he walks home from the club in the rain. There are puddles everywhere and he sees his warped reflection in each one. He thinks he looked better when he was with Lily. If he hadn’t drunk so much, he probably wouldn’t be remembering so much about her. He wants to paint her green eyes again.

His keys are way too cold in his fingers and everything is numb and awful as he fumbles to get them into the lock. Collapsing on the couch, he runs a hand through his hair and thinks he should probably never move again.

He uses the last shred of energy he has to put the kettle on, and he stares at it for a moment as it starts to boil. Then, there’s a desperate, clambering knock on the door.

He opens it, and she stands on his doorstep like her own form of a puddle. Her vibrant hair is plastered to her forehead and there are dark rings around her eyes. She sucks a breath in as his hitches.

“James,” She breathes, then hiccups. There’s something in her voice, so simple and familiar that he wants to kiss her right then and there.

“Lily? What are you doing here?”

“i-I…” She falters.

He drinks in her features. Fuck, he forgot she had that many freckles. Splattered with the rain, they’re even more beautiful than he remembers.

“I wanted to come back as soon as I left. But… what you said really hurt me and I refused to apologise for that. so I… just didn’t.”

“It’s okay, Lil. I fucked up,”

“So did I, james, don’t you get it? My pride, it really got the better of me. But… look, I know you’re drunk, and I’m not completely sober right now, but this is the only place that has ever felt like home to me and even though you’re the most annoying person in the world and you drool in your sleep I don’t think I will ever love anyone the way I love you,”

It’s all too much, and he kind of can’t handle it. Lily, in the rain with her hair pressed to her face, and he kisses her.

It becomes unclear what’s rain and what’s tears, but she presses herself into him and they’re kissing to make up for five months of lost time.

“Please never leave my life again,” He whispers. They stumble back into the house and she kicks the door shut.

“Only if we can get Chinese tonight,” she mumbles against his lips.

“Lil, it’s 2am.”

“I don’t care. I walked here in the rain.”

The hole in his gut is overrun by greens and reds and a single word. Her.

requested by: @ssiriusblack​

here’s a thing i wrote on my birthday. read it here too if u like. 

//

He calls her Lil.

There’s something about the way he says it, something playful and magnetic. Something gentle. Something raw.

“Lil, pass me the salt,” through a mouthful of food.

“Lil, you look like a sunflower in that dress,” when he can’t stop looking for her as she runs down the stairs in a flurry.

“Lil, I kind of bloody love you. Just a little bit,” when she’s curled up on the couch reading while they listen to Elvis.

Or even “Hey, Lil, I ever told you about the time me and Sirius were caught painting the prefects bathroom at 2am?”

She’s always liked the way it rolls of his tongue, so easily, but something about it always feels like a kick in the gut.

Because he’s an idiot, an all-consuming nerd with lanky limbs and hair that will never behave and, would you believe, he cried in awe when she took him to see Star Wars.

He tries to cook her special dinners without magic but makes too many puns and burns the food while laughing at his own jokes. He pokes her in the ribs so she’ll pay attention to him and his belly rumbles with laugher whenever she lays on him and the boys are there. His hands are warm and he buys her flower bouquets that are filled with every flower possible.

“But, Lil, they all reminded me of you,” Lil.

Her favourite sound is his hoarse morning voice, when she’s making breakfast and watering the sunflowers on the windowsill. He’ll tumble down the stairs and throw his arms around her awkwardly, whispering morning into her ear. One time he made her knock the sunflowers over in shock.

He’s a dork, a dork that she can feel in her pulse, like he’s part of her now, like she never wants anyone else to say morning to her again, like she can’t get rid of him. She doesn’t ever want to.

He’s in love with her, the way she’s in love with him. She leaves kisses at the bottom of the shopping list and always misspells necessarily. She wears stockings with rips in them and once tried to dye a strip of her pink, forgetting how badly it would clash with the rest of it.

He tumbles over his words when he cares a lot and he pushes his hair into his face when he’s talking, trips trying to kick Remus in the shins playfully. Stays up until 4am to make sure his friends are okay and wakes up at sunrise to make sure Lily is still sleeping okay.

He knows all the words to yellow submarine and he sings it while drunk, even if his favourite Beatles song is actually she’s so heavy.

And she can feel her cheeks still go warm, she’s nineteen and she should probably be starting to figure life out, oh, but he makes her feel so young and electric, like her teenage years should be. He lets her call him several variations of Jim, whether its jimmy, Jim jams, jammy Jims, or jiminy cricket. Even if he rolls her eyes when Sirius, Remus, Peter or even Marlene walk into their flat mumbling greetings of “Oi, Jiminy Cricket,” Because lily made them watch Disney films one rainy afternoon.

They kind of make each other’s heartbeats rise and slow all at once and it’s kind of messy because sometimes she cries about the war in the middle of the night and he has nightmares about Sirius dying and he’ll cling to her for support and she’ll let him.

But then, oh then, other times he’ll walk down the stairs and her hair is alight in the morning sun as she’s watering the sunflowers, and he’s in love.

And she’ll look at him while he’s having a snarky conversation with Remus or tackling Sirius or making cookies with Pete and she’ll think there’s a reason I picked you.

And he calls her Lil.

                                                “i will if you go out with me, evans”

         “i wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the g i a n t  s q u i d”

happy birthday to my lovely liyah @lilyevane​ ♡♡

“I will if you go out with me, Evans” 

— Happy birthday to Liyah ( @lilyevane )