SPOILERS: All four books in general terms.

CONTENT: Lily/James, plus a tiny side-serving of Sirius/Remus

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: "How come she married him?" Harry asked miserably. "She hated him!"

DISCLAIMER: The Harry Potter series and all the characters associated with it are the property solely of J. K. Rowling, her agents and publishers. No infringement of any rights is intended from the creation of this story. Nor is any money being made from it.

NOTES: The weird thing about this is that I really have absolutely no interest in Lily/James stories. I don't think I've read a single fanfic where Lily/James is the main focus of the story. So where did this come from?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Beth Ann, who once again read every word, despite it being a het fic!

Comments would be very welcome.

 

BROOMFLIGHT

By Mad Martha

madmartha@...

 

Part 1/2

"How come she married him?" Harry asked miserably. "She hated him!"

"Nah, she didn't," said Sirius.

"She started going out with him in seventh year," said Lupin.

"Once James had deflated his head a bit," said Sirius.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (page 591, UK edition)

---------------------------

"You!" Lily Evans hissed, appalled. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"

James Potter grinned at her engagingly, quite unabashed by this greeting. "Hullo Evans! Having a good summer?"

Lily eased around the edge of the door, praying none of her family had heard his knock, and shut it behind her. She glared at him from the top step.

"Potter, you insufferable creep, what do you want?" she demanded. "More to the point, how did you find out where I live?"

"Oh, come now - is that any way for the new Head Girl of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to speak to the Head Boy?"

Oh no. He couldn't be. The Headmaster was openly referred to as "quite mad" by many of the pupils, but even he wouldn't - would he? Unless ….

She folded her arms and gave him a withering smile. "Inflating your own head again, Potter? You can't possibly know who the Head Boy and Girl will be, because the letters haven't been sent out yet."

James raised his brows and pulled a crumpled parchment envelope out of his jeans pocket. At least, she noted, he was wearing appropriate clothing for a Muggle residential area.

"Haven't you had yours?" he asked, unfolding the letter. "Mine arrived this morning."

Lily's mouth dried up, for along with the letter a shiny badge with the words "Head Boy" enamelled on it fell into his hand. Then she frowned. "No, I - " Enlightenment, in the form of her sister's expression of smug malice at the breakfast table that morning, dawned. "Petunia!"

She whirled and flung herself back through the front door without a second glance at him. The door slammed shut in his face.

"Well, that went pretty much as expected," James muttered to himself. He glanced to his right, towards the end of the road. Sirius was loitering under an oak tree there, grinning offensively at his friend. James flipped a finger at him and Sirius disappeared. He decided to try the knocker again.

This time the door was opened by a man in his mid-forties. His expression was mild, but James noted a glint of amusement in his eyes as he surveyed the stranger. This had to be Lily's father; the resemblance was remarkable.

"Can I help you?"

No one could ever accuse James of lacking in courage. Pinning on a friendly smile, he offered his hand. "Mr. Evans? I'm James Potter - I'm in the same year as your daughter at school. Perhaps she's mentioned me?"

The look of amusement increased but Mr. Evans shook hands quite cordially. "As it happens, she has. Why don't you come in? It's not often we get to meet Lily's school-friends."

There was no mistaking that expression; James was willing to bet his life on Lily's father having as wicked a sense of humour as any of his own friends. He relaxed a little, liking the older man immediately, and gave him a rueful grin as he politely wiped his shoes on the mat.

"Has she mentioned me, sir?"

"Oh yes," Mr. Evans nodded. "On a number of occasions."

"Nothing good, I'll bet," James grinned.

"Well, that's Lily." Mr. Evans looked up the staircase. Sounds of a lively quarrel were drifting down from the upper storey. "Lily! You have a visitor!" There was a sudden plummeting silence. Mr. Evans smiled to himself and turned back to James. "She'll be down in a minute. Come through to the garden!"

As he followed the other man through the house, trying hard not to stare at all the unfamiliar Muggle objects and furnishings, James couldn't help feeling just a touch smug about this development. Sirius had rudely predicted that if Evans herself didn't send him packing, her parents would. This was quite a coup.

There was a neat little patio area behind the house, with a table and chairs. There was no one else around; James wondered briefly where Mrs. Evans was, but privately was rather glad she wasn't there. He had a sneaking feeling that she wouldn't be quite so accepting of him as Lily's father. Mr. Evans invited him to sit down and regarded him for a moment.

"So, James Potter, you're a wizard, are you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Family all wizards?"

"Yes, sir - thirteen generations!" James was proud of his family heritage, but decided to hold back from saying any more. He was sure Lily had informed her family of the tensions between pureblood families and those who were less strict, and didn't want to make a bad impression.

Mr. Evans's brows went up. "Remarkable! And what do wizards with long family trees do with themselves?"

James cocked his head questioningly. "Me or my father, sir?"

"Both, I suppose."

"My father's a diplomat - with the Ministry of Magic. But I'm hoping to play Quidditch professionally."

"Yes, Lily mentioned that in passing too." Mr. Evans picked up a pouch of tobacco from the table and began to fill a pipe. "That's fine for a few years, I'm sure, but if it's anything like ordinary sports, you'll end up retiring by the time you're thirty. Or isn't Quidditch like that? I freely admit my ignorance on the subject. My daughter tried to explain it to me a few times, but without having actually seen it I can't say I understand the concepts involved at all."

Thirty seemed like a million years away from James at that point. He couldn't even imagine it; it was hard enough to imagine leaving school in less than a year's time. But he knew a lot about professional Quidditch and knew that Mr. Evans's observation was a just one - and one moreover that his own father had voiced.

"I'm not putting all my eggs into one basket," he assured the older man. "I promised my father I'd take the Ministry entrance exam as well."

"It's always helpful to have a second string to your bow," Mr. Evans agreed. "Lily talks about something she calls "curse-breaking", for a bank. Have I got that right?"

"Yes - for Gringotts. That's quite a prestigious job." And wasn't that an eye-opener? James hadn't had any particular thoughts on what Lily would do when she left school, but curse-breaking wouldn't have been high on his list in any case. That was the kind of thing Sirius was considering.

There were footsteps and Lily appeared on the patio, carrying her letter. She didn't look best pleased to see James having a tête-à-tête with her father, but she forced a pleasant smile as he politely stood up. Then another girl appeared behind her - older, taller, with long blonde hair and a sharp expression. Her eyes flicked over James at once and her lip curled, making her look remarkably like Severus Snape.

"Not another freak!" she remarked, and there was a note of shrill malice in her voice as her eyes went to her sister.

James's eyes widened in astonishment. Lily turned a bright, mortified crimson and the good humour fled from her father's eyes.

"Petunia!" he snapped, but she had already turned on her heel and retreated.

Mr. Evans stood up and surveyed James. "Forgive Petunia's rudeness," he said. "I'd better have a word with her …." He offered his hand to James. "Good to meet you, James - at long last." The wicked glint was back in his eyes as he glanced at Lily.

James swallowed a grin. "Good to meet you too, Mr. Evans."

"Hm. I do hope you're planning to take Lily out for the afternoon. She spends too much time with her books." And giving his daughter a valedictory pat on the shoulder, Mr. Evans nodded to the pair of them and disappeared back into the house.

James looked at Lily. She was clearly torn between indignation at him forcing himself into her father's good graces and lingering embarrassment at her sister's behaviour.

"I like your father," he offered. "He seems really nice."

"Too kind!" Lily said, with awful sarcasm.

"And I'm sure your sister's a lovely person once you get to know her."

There was a pause, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "She's a miserable hag, Potter - you don't have to be nice about it."

He grinned. This was definitely looking promising. "Not a hag, Evans. I mean, she's quite pretty … even if she does have eyes like a Dementor."

Lily's own, bright green eyes widened. "A what?"

"Dementor." He reddened slightly. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. They guard Azkaban - you know, the wizard prison."

"No, I didn't know." For a moment curiosity replaced annoyance. "I didn't even know there was a wizard prison. Where is it?"

"On an island in the North Sea. It's pretty bleak, and the Dementors make it worse. They … well, they sort of feed off your feelings, leaving nothing but terrible memories in your mind. And they can suck out your soul."

"Oh." Lily frowned. "They weren't in my copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them."

"They wouldn't be." James's tone was slightly dry. "It's like goblins and house-elves - you can't really classify someone you hire as a beast, can you?"

The glare reappeared. "Typical wizard bigotry," Lily stated, as though he was personally responsible. "I think it's disgusting!"

"Hey, I didn't say I agreed with it! It's just the way it is. Besides, Dementors should be classified as beasts - foul things." James hastily changed the subject. "So, did you get your letter?"

"Yes." Lily reluctantly broke the seal and opened the letter. Another gold badge fell out, this one with the words "Head Girl" in enamel.

James nobly resisted the urge to gloat, but pinned on an innocent smile as she sent another blistering glare in his direction. There was a long pause as she read her letter, and by the end she was looking resigned, which was at least a marginal improvement.

"We're advised to meet up before term starts and discuss how we plan to run the show this year," she stated, folding her letter and putting it back into the envelope. "Is that what this is? A meeting to discuss prefects and first years?"

"And to get to know each other better, seeing as we'll obviously be working together closely over the coming year." He gave her a virtuous look and the glare returned at once.

"What I want to know, Potter, is how you ever managed to be picked as a prefect when your friend Lupin resigned last year! He's worth ten of you."

James was a little hurt. He was perfectly willing to go along with her assessment of Remus, but something in the way she said the words made them sting unexpectedly. He knew he owed his position as prefect the previous year entirely to the incident at the Whomping Willow, but he'd made a real effort to reform himself and retrieve his reputation. He'd even reined in Sirius - not that it had been difficult, for even he'd been chastened by that same incident and settled down somewhat. They'd both concentrated on their studies and Quidditch and the number of 'incidents' perpetrated by the Marauders had dropped drastically, the four of them contenting themselves with the monthly full moon excursion.

Not that he could tell Lily Evans that.

"You'd have to ask Remus about that," he said flatly. "It's his business. But I can assure you that I have every intention of being a model Head Boy this year."

She was unappeased. "That I have to see."

There was another long silence, which she was obviously in no hurry to break. Finally James sighed.

"So …."

She raised a brow. He persevered.

"Since I have your father's permission - want to go for an ice cream?"

The brow rose a little higher. "Why, do you have a supply of Muggle money with you?"

He frowned. "I was thinking of Florean Fortescue's, actually."

"It may have escaped your notice, but we happen to be many miles from Diagon Alley here," Lily pointed out dryly.

"So we'll Apparate."

"I don't have my licence yet."

James frowned. "Why not? You're seventeen, aren't you?" He knew she was. He'd sent her a tasteful birthday present which, arriving as it did at the school breakfast table and in front of all her friends, she hadn't been able to return without looking utterly ungracious. Which was, of course, exactly what he'd intended.

She was beginning to get angry, a state which admittedly suited her, giving her face colour and fire in her eyes. "I haven't had a chance to take the test yet! I don't have easy access to Diagon Alley like you do, Potter, we're not on the Floo network and my parents have to drive me - "

He rolled his eyes impatiently. "I get the picture! Don't go anywhere - I'll only be a minute."

And he disappeared, leaving Lily to stare indignantly at the spot where he'd been standing.

A little under ten minutes later, he reappeared with a pop!, wearing an open-fronted robe over his jeans and carrying his broomstick.

"Oh no," Lily said, eyeing it with misgivings. "No, Potter, absolutely not."

"Would it kill you to use my given name?" he asked.

"We'll be seen!" she hissed, ignoring the question.

"No, we won't." James pulled something out of the pocket of his robe - a long, silvery-looking cloak. "I'm going to trust you with a secret, Lily." And he tossed the cloak over his head.

He vanished and if Lily hadn't already been half-expecting something like this, she would have cried out. Even so, it was a considerable surprise. She had heard of Invisibility Cloaks, of course, but everything she'd read or been told gave her to believe that they were very rare and very expensive. Not that the latter detail would be a problem for the famously rich Potter family.

"Well, that explains a lot," she remarked, and folded her arms. There was no reply and after a moment or two she began to fidget nervously. "Potter? Are you still here? Come on, this isn't funny." Silence. She bit her lip and hoped she wasn't about to make a big mistake. "James?"

Someone blew down the neck of her dress, making her jump.

"Actually," James said, re-emerging from under the cloak, "it's hilariously funny." He grinned at her and sidled up to her shoulder. "Good - you're quite a bit shorter than me. This should just about cover both of us for as long as we need it to." He looked wistful. "Pity you're not up for any fun and frisk. It's nearly impossible to use this cloak for anything decent now that Sirius is so tall, and it's no good expecting Peter to do anything really wild. He's too scared."

Lily experienced an irrational impulse to commiserate, which she squashed firmly, even though it was rather galling to be automatically dismissed as not being up for anything 'wild'. Which was ridiculous. She was the Head Girl and there would be nothing wild going on, least of all with James Bighead Potter.

"And Lupin won't do?" she found herself asking.

James gave her an odd grin. "He only goes if Sirius does."

That seemed like a strange thing for him to say. Remus Lupin had never seemed particularly easily led to Lily, and least of all by Sirius Black. On the other hand he was definitely a part of the 'gang' and while he might be an entirely more sober character, he was usually there when the other three inevitably got themselves into trouble.

"Anyway, there hasn't been room for all of us under this thing since we were kids," he continued briskly, and he tossed the cloak around them both. "Brilliant. This'll do until we get to Diagon Alley."

"I'm not getting on that broom with you, Potter," she protested. "Brooms aren't made for two people and I'm a hopeless flyer - "

"There's plenty of room for two people," he interrupted, "and all you have to do is hang onto me. You don't seriously think I'd drop you in mid-air, do you?"

He looked highly insulted and Lily wavered, for even she didn't have the nerve to suggest such a thing of the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. James Potter was universally acknowledged to be a natural and reputedly several Quidditch teams were only holding back on signing him now because his father wouldn't countenance interference in his studies for his NEWTs.

She scrambled for something to say, but could only come up with a weak: "All this for an ice cream?"

"No!" he said, exasperated. "All this so that you can take your Apparition test and spend the rest of the summer going where you like, when you like!"

Oh. "But I don't have an appointment."

"You don't need one. Unless something goes hideously wrong, it only takes about twenty minutes." Now it was his turn to glare. "Any more arguments? Or shall we get a move on, before the Apparition Office closes?"

"Is there room for you to take off from here?"

James looked at the neat little garden and huffed a breath. If it had been just him, he would have done it. But she was right; with a passenger he would need more room for a safe take-off.

"Okay, there's a spot at the bottom of the road - lots of trees screening some open ground." And before she could say anything, he wrapped the cloak around the broom, making it vanish. He looked at her and cocked his head to one side. "You might want to bring a robe. And your handbag, I suppose."

That put her on her mettle. She wasn't the kind of girl who carried a mess of lipsticks, tissues and other rubbish around with her …. She wished her mother would let her buy a pair of jeans, though. Broomflight in a dress was bound to be a chilly business. She dug out a school robe (the only kind she currently possessed) and secreted her purse and wand in an inside pocket. When she ran downstairs again Potter was standing in the hallway, giving her sneering sister a blandly amiable smile.

"Don't you have better things to do?" Lily asked her crossly. "Like sharpening your fangs?"

"I'm not the freak around here!" Petunia snapped back. "I suppose this creep is your new boyfriend. And you'll end up marrying him and breeding even more freaks - "

"Yes, but not today," James said, before Lily could say anything. "We're a bit busy today. Maybe tomorrow we'll have time for freak-breeding." He smiled at her and offered his hand. "So nice to have met you!"

For a moment it looked like Petunia might spit at him; she recoiled, pointedly drawing away from his outstretched hand. "Don't touch me! I don't want to catch anything."

"Petunia!" Lily gasped, but James only laughed.

"I wish Sirius could hear that," he said as they walked down the pavement. "It confirms everything his family say about Muggles."

"It's not funny," Lily muttered. "I told you, she's a hag."

"I don't suppose she can help it," he replied generously. "Besides, it's an interesting experience. Now I know what it's like."

She gave him an odd look. "What do you mean?"

He smiled at her. "Being called a Mudblood."

Lily didn't know what to say to that, so she remained silent until they reached the end of the road and ducked into the trees.

"Now what?" she asked quietly. The patch of open ground behind the trees was currently occupied by a group of small boys playing football.

James unwrapped the Invisibility Cloak from his broom and held the latter out in mid-air. "Up," he instructed it calmly.

The broom hovered obediently at mounting height. This wasn't his more temperamental Nimbus 1100, which he kept solely for Quidditch, but a Comet Cloudsweeper, which was an older and more reliable long-distance broom. It wouldn't try to buck Lily off if it sensed she was nervous.

James swung a leg over it and settled himself, tucking his toes up behind him easily. He nodded to Lily. "Hop on, grab hold of me and hook your feet on the foot-rests."

Feeling queasy and doubtful, she obeyed. It wasn't easy. She had no natural balance for this sort of thing and hadn't been lying when she said she was a bad flyer. She always expected the broom to move, roll over or fall from under her. But she managed it, although she ended up sitting far closer to him than she liked, with her hands on his shoulders. James rolled his eyes and reached behind him, grabbing her arms and firmly transferring them to his middle.

"Believe me, it's safer this way," he told her. He flicked out the Invisibility Cloak and swung it around the two of them. It took a couple of attempts, plus a Fixing Charm, but it finally covered the two of them - just - and the broom. "Right," he said softly. "Hold tight - "

And he urged the broom into motion.

If it had just been him on the broom - or him and Sirius, or either of the other Marauders - he'd have enjoyed whipping through the trees at a clipping pace, testing his reflexes. But with Lily on the back, and very aware of her nervous grip, James guided the broom carefully out of the trees. He skirted around the edge of the field, avoiding the oblivious children, and tilted the broom back, gaining height. As soon as he was sure he was clear of the rooftops and all the wires Muggles seemed to string between their houses, he poured on the speed.

Lily didn't actually squeak, but he felt her twitch and her grip tightened around his middle. Sirius would have snorted dismissively and said Muggleborns! in a scathing tone, but James was inclined to be easier on her. He found it hard to understand how anyone could be afraid of flying (even Peter could fly to a reasonable standard) but it was hardly Lily's fault that she hadn't climbed onto a broom until she was eleven. And she'd promptly fallen off again, as he remembered. His lips twitched with amusement.

It was a fair flight to London, and they didn't reach Charing Cross Road until late afternoon. James steered into a convenient back alley and kept the broom at an easy height while Lily scrambled off awkwardly. She was stiff from the journey, and a little cold, but made no complaints.

"All right?" he asked her, as he tucked the cloak away inside his robe.

She nodded. "Just not used to flying for that long."

"You need to practice, that's all."

Lily sighed. "Yes, well, a broom of my own is something else I don't have, Potter."

"James," he corrected her. He considered the information she had just given him; he had half a dozen brooms of varying ages, but he supposed it was too soon to offer to lend her one. Besides, he got the impression that she didn't really want to learn. He thought he could change that, given an opportunity, but not just then so he shrugged inwardly and checked his watch instead. "Let's get to the Apparition Office - they'll be closing in an hour."

Diagon Alley was still quite busy, and Lily eyed the shops wistfully as they hurried past. She only got to come here once a year, and it was always a tremendous rush, fighting against hordes of other Hogwarts pupils and their parents as they all hurried to buy new books, robes and supplies for the coming year.

"If you pass your test today, you can always come back," James said in her ear, and the idea was such a novel one that she actually smiled at him.

The Apparition Office was a dingy little annexe to the Ministry building that reminded Lily strongly of the Victorian offices of her Muggle primary school. The wooden floor was very worn and dusty, and the man behind the desk had immense side whiskers. He sniffed irritably as they presented themselves - probably due to the lateness of the hour - and directed Lily through a side door, leaving James to twiddle his thumbs for the bare twenty minutes the written theory questionnaire and rapid-fire practical examination took. Lily travelled further around the British Isles in five minutes than she'd done in her entire life.

But when she emerged again, elated, unaccountably exhausted and clutching a safety leaflet in her left hand, she had passed with flying colours and it was James who cheerfully flicked three Galleons onto the desk to pay for her official licence. When she would have paid him back, he waved her off.

"Present!"

"No, you can't - it's a lot of money!"

"Nah, it isn't," he said casually, effectively silencing her. "Ice cream?"

The gulf between them seemed to yawn open again as Lily silently followed him back up Diagon Alley to Florean Fortescue's. He insisted on paying for the ice creams as well, and her discomfort increased; if it hadn't been such a public place, she would have argued more vehemently.

"What's the matter?" James asked finally, when she'd silently picked at her immense peanut butter and peach ripple sundae for more than ten minutes.

"You," she said bluntly. "You throw money around like it's nothing."

He stared at her, perplexed. "I might be an insufferable creep," he said pointedly, "and I might even be a freak like your sister says - " she made an inarticulate sound of denial, "but I was raised properly and a bloke doesn't take a girl out and expect her to pay for her own ice cream. My father would probably disown me if I did."

"It's not the ice cream. You paid for my Apparition Licence and - "

"Did you have the three Galleons?" he interrupted.

"Yes!" Lily fumbled with her purse. Well … yes. She did have three Galleons. But she didn't get a lot of pocket-money and the licence fee on top of all her school supplies for the following year would probably leave her with uncomfortably little change to spend in Hogsmeade over the coming term.

That was irrelevant. She couldn't allow another pupil to pay for her licence when she had the money to pay for it herself, and she held out the three Galleons to James stubbornly. He sighed and closed her fingers over the coins, pushing her hand away.

"Don't be silly!"

"I'm not being silly!" she flared at him and held the coins out again. "Take it, please!"

"No, Lily! Look, why are you making such a fuss? It's three Galleons, not the entire Ministry budget for St. Mungo's. It was a present, that's all - you're supposed to say thank you and forget about it!"

"You have no reason to give me presents, Potter - "

"James, it's James."

" - it's not like I'm your girlfriend and - "

"Everything all right here?" a jovial voice asked and Florean Fortescue himself loomed over their table.

Lily was abruptly silenced, her face flaming, but James cast an harassed look at the café owner in a silent plea for help. Fortescue winked and leaned forward, tapping Lily's sundae glass with his wand to revive the wilting ice cream.

"This isn't what I like to see," he told her in gentle reproof. "You'll give my sundaes a bad name, treating them like this!" Her colour deepened but she said nothing. He turned to James and tapped his sundae glass, which promptly refilled itself with chocolate ripple ice cream. Fortescue clapped him on the shoulder and murmured "Courage!" before drifting away again.

"He gave you that for free," Lily said, staring at his glass.

"He does that sometimes," James retorted. "People do, you know - give people things for free. It's usually considered a friendly gesture!"

He was a little surprised when she mumbled "Sorry" and put the contentious Galleons back in her purse. Then she picked up her spoon and dug into the ice cream.

"It's okay," he muttered, and cast around for a neutral topic of conversation, before their mutual embarrassment could ruin everything. He remembered the school letters and pulled his out of his pocket again. "Look, want to talk first year management strategy?"

She nodded in relief and for the next half an hour they talked about prefect deployment, management of heavy-handed Slytherin prefects, organisation of first years and, as James was the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, arrangement of prefect meetings to try and avoid clashes. James resigned himself to there being a few anyway; after all, there were three other teams to be taken into account, each with prefects on them who would want to avoid missing both meetings and practices.

"Am I going to get any time to revise for my NEWTs in all this?" he asked at the end, only half-joking as he looked at the mauled sheet of parchment they had produced. More to the point, there was the question of whether any of these arrangements would interfere with the full moon, but there wasn't much he could do about that here and now.

Looking up into Lily's clear green eyes, he was suddenly seized by an impulse to tell her about the necessity of being free on a full moon and why. She seemed an open-minded person about such things - surely she would understand and be sympathetic towards Remus? He stopped himself just in time. The full moon wasn't his secret to tell, it was Remus's; and Remus's life was at stake if the wrong person found out. The Whomping Willow incident had taught him that, if nothing else.

Besides, he didn't really know her that well. It wasn't as if she was even his girlfriend.

The second overwhelming impulse sneaked up on him and blurted itself out before he could stop it.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

Lily's eyes widened in astonishment.

Oh no. James instantly wished the ground would swallow him up and could only be grateful that Sirius wasn't there to laugh himself into stitches over his best friend's total lack of cool. Do you want to be my girlfriend? How pathetic, how juvenile, was that? What next? Shuffling his feet and offering her a bite of his Chocolate Frog?

Something of his feelings must have been obvious in his face, for she burst into unexpected giggles. He snorted and sat back, chucking his quill on the table.

"Oh yeah," he said wryly, "I'm suave."

"You should have tried that line on Petunia," Lily said, when she got her breath back. Her eyes were still sparkling with laughter. "It would have shut her up if nothing else!"

James grinned back at her. "Yeah, but what would I have done if she'd said yes?"

"Got your friends to help you wriggle out of it, probably." She picked up the sheet of parchment and wrinkled her nose at it. "Shall I write this up properly and owl you a copy?"

That seemed to herald the end of their meeting. James agreed to her suggestion and watched as she tucked the paper away in her robes. She picked up her purse and they both left the café, walking slowly up the street.

"Are you going to fly me - " Lily stopped, her eyes widening. "Oh! But I can Apparate home now, can't I?"

She beamed, but James was conscious of disappointment.

"I'll fly you home if you like," he offered.

She smiled at him. "Don't be silly! It's miles out of your way."

He shrugged. "I don't mind!"

"But what's the point of me having my licence if I don't use it?"

"Practice?" he suggested.

Lily shook her head, still smiling. "No, really - you have no idea how bad I am on a broom. It's a wonder I didn't tip us both off earlier."

"You're not that bad," James told her. "You're just nervous because you're not used to brooms, aren't you?"

Lily looked at him for a moment.

"We have a broom just like that one - " she pointed to the Cloudsweeper in his hand, "in our garden shed at home. We used to use it to brush up leaves in the autumn, and when we were little Petunia and I used to play at being witches and pretend to fly it around the garden." She saw his expression. "It didn't really fly, Potter. It was a game that lots of Muggle girls play. Then one day I was standing in a field with twenty other children, taking my first flying lesson. I took one look at the broom and I just couldn't believe that it would really fly."

He smiled. "So it didn't, did it?"

She rolled her eyes. "You were there. You know what happened!"

"Everyone else was four feet in the air and you were still pleading with it to get up." Yes, he remembered that only too well. He'd been one of the people laughing himself helpless at the sight. "And when you did persuade it to hover - "

"I climbed on and fell off the other side."

"So you did." He managed to keep a straight face.

"It moved," she said, giving him a grim look that was rendered rather less effective by the smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. "As soon as I tried to sit on it, it moved from under me, and don't you dare say it didn't!"

"It probably did, actually," James said, grinning. "Those school brooms are the pits. They're old and damaged and brooms can get moody over time. You were probably unlucky and got a stroppy one."

"Whatever. It didn't help me learn to fly." Lily shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, it's not like I wanted to be on the Quidditch team, after all, and now I can Apparate …."

"You don't know when it might be useful to be able to fly," James told her. "It's virtually untrackable, unless someone hexes your broom." She raised a brow. "And it's good exercise. Lots of fresh air."

She shrugged. "Maybe. But I don't have a broom, so it's a bit pointless, isn't it? Besides, I told you; I'm hopeless."

"I could teach you," he offered. "I have a spare broom you can borrow."

"Oh, Potter - "

"James."

She fell silent, looking doubtful.

James could smell victory. "What time do you have to be home by?"

"We have dinner at seven o'clock in the summer," she said a little reluctantly.

"Loads of time. Come on." He set off up the Alley.

"But where are we going?" She had to stretch her legs to keep up with him.

"Home." He saw her expression as he led her into a side alley and grinned. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up against him. "I've seen your house; now you can see mine."

He Disapparated, taking her with him.

 

End Part 1/2