It was well known around the castle that the broom closet on the fifth floor three doors down from the arithmancy classroom was James and Lily's broom closet.

...no one in their right mind dared to use it for their own personal needs, because either one of the two would catch them (it was like a sixth sense, knowing someone was in their closet) or the closet itself would chuck them out and serve the canoodling couple a detention, 'courtesy of your Head Boy and Girl.' Brilliant prank put to wonderfully good prefectly use.

James and Lily when together, really could not be beat.

Potter, haha. She'd said it a million times since last night, but it was still giving her goosebumps.

--did it matter? No, apparently, because the thought of all that the name Lily Potter meant still made her dizzy, whether it was him thinking it or her.

"So I take it you weren't too smashed to remember last night's conversation." "I'll remember if it's okay with you to remember it,"

...up later on during the night, he'd turned over and looked at Lily and---bugger, anyone in Hogwarts could tell you that James Potter had always wanted to wake up next to Lily Evans, but now the question of whether or not he wanted to wake up beside her for the rest of his life had arisen, and it was stupidly (but amazingly) terrifying (but brilliant) that he'd immediately thought 'yes.'

"I shouldn't be able to allow you to remember anything, but it would be a lie to say that I wish you wouldn't,"

--she wanted to look at him, because looking into his eyes when he admitted that the idea of marriage didn't completely freak him out was soaring to the top of her 'most amazing feelings in the world' list.

The one. It. All she needed for the rest of her life.

"Tell me where we're going, James, I'm all yours."

They weren't going anywhere because she'd just killed him and he was going to die and float up to heaven in this broom closet.

---she had to know that he was hers, she'd known that since he'd tripped her on the way back to the Gryffindor common room that first day in Hogwarts--oh, holy crap, he loved her and knew he wouldn't be able to function correctly if she wasn't there for the rest of his life, if she wasn't his wife and--

He let go of his hold on her and dropped to the floor, not because he'd fainted (but he was about ready to), but because he'd gone to a knee and before James could even realize that he was kneeling in something wet,

"I want you to marry me, Evans."

"You're i--insane if you think I--that'd I'd say--I mean, I--I love you so mu--I--put that damn ring on my finger, Potter!"

LILY EVANS HAD JUST ACCEPTED A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL FROM HIM, JAMES POTTER! LILY EVANS WAS GOING TO BE LILY POTTER BECAUSE SHE'D SAID YES TO MARRYING HIM, JAMES POTTER!

This had to be the best moment of his life. And having sex with Lily was pretty fucking hard to beat, but this managed to do it quite nicely.

For a second the transfiguration professor kept the same scolding glare on her face, but it melted away and she clamped her hands to her mouth, and what James thought was a little jump of excitement. See, everyone approved.

They! Were! Getting! Married! ¤



James really did enjoy her all disheveled this way; reminded him that Lily Evans (soontobePotter, a thought that always crossed his mind when someone said her last name) had let him in to her what had once been a fortress of solitude personal space.

He kissed her once, twice, a few more times before kissing her hard. Guh, he loved this girl.

"More jewlery? You're really going to spoil me," she chastised lightly. "You don't want me to get used to this kind of thing, do you? By our fifth I'll be demanding diamond rings and tennis bracelets for every year we've been married."

"Okay. It's---it's not anything new or---well, it is shiny, but---it's been in my family for ages and---you deserve to have it. I should've--this is what I should've proposed with."

"Er--well, yes. I mean. This is what my dad proposed with and, erm...And--my mum, she, well, last year, she gave it to him, before she----and, cause I'd told her about---you and---it's yours."

"I love it, I love you--so so so much, Merlin, I--I don't know what to say---" "Ooh, okay."

...for some reason his hand was shaking as if he was actually proposing for the first time.

...she was going straight to them to squeal and be excited right after she was done with James. Of course, that wouldn't be for a while, she thought with a smirk, because she was so not even close to done with him.

Right now all she wanted to was snog this silly man senseless, this silly, wonderful, amazing, great man, Merlin's coathangers was he the most magnificent person in the world and as she tackled him quite suddenly back onto the bed, she couldn't help but thinking she was the luckiest girl on earth. ¤



Without hesitation James walked them back to the door and made a show of shutting it and jumbling for his keys while managing to keep Lily up in his arms. That’s how you did it, right?

“DON’T TOUCH HER---GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!”

"FUCK YOU!" she screamed in a voice that was not her own. She had never heard herself like she heard herself now. "FUCK YOU! LEAVE US ALONE, YOU BASTARD, DON'T YOU SPEAK A WORD TO HIM!"

If James didn’t know it before, this was the reason why he married Lily.

Just agree to come along with me, and I’ll let her go. It’s simple, really.” “Fuck. Off.”

“Kill her.”

...that door and James beside her and that was all she needed to force herself to keep moving.

Merlin’s pants, it was the best feeling in the world, Lily’s grip on his arm,

-what could she think of, what was happy enough to call forth a real Patron--oh. Lily's eyes flitted to the man beside her and in a split second the answer dawned on her. Well, it was obvious, wasn't it? All she had to do was think of him and--

"Expecto Patronum!" ¤



....and while it may have taken her two more days after that to stand up, to let her feet cross that threshold into the rest of the house, to decide that she needed James so much more than she needed to sit alone in a bedroom and protect herself, she had done it.

SMASH!

James knew he wasn't going to give up on her.

Though---there was life in her, there was a fire, and that was more he'd seen from her in almost a week---

...it was like seeing him had torn the voice and her fighting spirit right out of her and stomped it on the floor with the rest of the living room.

She felt his forehead touch hers and he spoke softly, almost too softly to hear, but all she could do for the longest time... minutes it must have been, but it felt like years--was listen to him repeat her name over and over and over and--

The thought of Lily being okay, or at least, getting back on the road to getting better was too much for his mind to handle at the moment. ¤



She felt bad enough already for having slipped him the drugs once; twice would be too much, even if it was for his own good.

She had slipped her husband sedatives, and she knew that it had been--at least in part--due to the fact that she needed a break. What kind of a wife did that make her?

...he longed for Lily's touch because it seemed to be the only thing that managed to soothe him lately.

"I bought stuff to make a cake--chocolate with strawberries, yeah?"

They understood each other completely, and it was because of that in times like this that they let them try to help the other out.

It was one of the most comforting things in the world, Lily thought, to have someone who she had such a thorough mutual understanding with.

"I love you, you know,"

James didn't care about sounding cliché anymore; hearing those words escape Lily Used-to-be-Evans-but-is-now-Potter's mouth always made him melt. Always, even if it wasn't a full out flush across his entire body like it was right now. Sometimes it was just a quirk of his lips or a wink of his eye, but every time James heard Lily tell him that she loved him some part of him was ready to burst with happiness. Some days it was the only thing that could get him to push on, and James loved her even more for it.

--no, no James reckoned one of the things Sirius would want for him was to get laid

She thought she could feel a shag coming on, ¤



Ha--in a little over a week was their first anniversary. The thought made James lean over and kiss the top of Lily's head.

--seriously, could you believe they'd been married almost a year now?

Except he hadn't pulled a prank like that in what felt like years, how amazing would it be to actually set one off with Lily and not have her scold him for setting a bad example?

Oh, what the hell was she talking about? Lily wanted to prank the hell out of someone and she knew it. Damn him and his bad influence. ¤



"Give me one too, then! I married her, I'm just as---targeted as she is!"

"I'll let them mark me ten times over before I let them touch you." ¤



"Oy, Evans. What do you say about ditching this party and finding our own?"

"It would be so unfortunate if I were some anonymous fourth year, Professor."

"Miss. Evans, I think I'm going to have to make sure you don't say a word."

Lily leaned forward to brush her lips against James' ear, and smiled wickedly. "Oh, I don't know. I'm quite a screamer."

And it helped that over the course of their relationship James had managed to turn Lily into some sort of sexual deviant.

So she wasn't the virginal goody-two-shoes she'd been for seventeen years of her life. She was at a married-ish woman, wasn't she? It was her right to be ridiculously dirty when it came to her husband thing.

Oy, had they been this bad of role models when they were the Heads?

"In our broom closet, was this where I got that sticky gunk on my knee? Is that what happened in there?" ¤



...he supposed the matron along with most of the other staff at the school still saw him and Lily as the bickering duo that filled the halls with loud, angry cursing or ridiculously sappy moments. Sometimes he still thought of himself that way.

"You know, you are worse than a small child,"

What if she was being serious and was ready to push him through the wall in estrogen induced rage?

"I'm going to knock you off the Astronomy Tower if that doesn't turn positive, Potter."

James was not going to let anything happen to their miraculous might-not-even-be-conceived baby.

"I've got a feeling, Evans."

Okay, so he really hadn't stopped thinking about babies.

She had almost dropped it. She had almost dropped it.

WHICH WAS FIZZING BLUE

She was going to be a mother. Holy shit.

They weren't supposed to get this, they never got the happy endings like this.

No, she couldn't cry, she had to say something--cute or---silly to James---or maybe tell him it was negative, just to get back at him for before.

...and he just need to touch her because that vial had turned blue and that meant that it was a boy and that meant that the Potters were going to have a baby. ¤



James had kept himself up and moving because he knew Lily would kill him if he didn't. If he didn't come home to her, if he didn't get to see her one more time, then there wouldn't be a point in trying anymore.

As much as James hated sounding like an over dramatic, constantly emoting, angst-filled victim of life and society, there was no doubt in his mind that he would die without Lily.

...just being able to touch her again sent a new surge of strength throughout him.

"Just--lie with me, will you?"

James Potter did not get to leave her alone now, of all times.

"There's nothing else I'd rather do." ¤



Still, because people had told him in fourth year...that he would get over the insanity he exuded when Lily Evans was in the room. Ha! Little did they know that he still made an arse out of himself once in a while (okay, more than once in a while) to get her to laugh, or smile, or simply look over at him, and he didn't mind it at all.

"I like Harry."

"Harry Potter?" "Harry James Potter."

James, Lily, and Harry. It made them sound like a family. ¤