Fire burns the body... love burns the soul."
-- anon
Kisses
Every single day for a month Lily spent every free minute she had visiting James in the hospital wing. He was healing, slowly but surely. A day before James was due to leave, the Marauders and Lily were planning something and he knew it.
"You're all conspiring against me!" He glowered at them when he caught them whispering while his back was turned.
"Would we do that?" Lily said cheekily, kissing him on the lips.
"Mmmmm. Feel free to conspire all you want just so long as I can have some more of those kisses."
She bent to kiss him again.
"You can have all the kisses you want."
Sirius rolled his eyes. The lovey-dovey stuff was really starting to annoy him, but in a sweet way.
"You two make me sick," he said, before turning to Lily and whispering, "we better get going if we're going to…"
She sighed dramatically.
"Ok, coming. I have to go now, but I'll come back later to say goodnight."
“Say? I’m sure you mean snog," James said, a smile spreading across his face.
The Marauders and Lily turned to leave.
"Hey Lils, could you pass me that magazine? Please?"
Lily walked back over to the bed and handed him the magazine. He threw it behind him, pulled her close and kissed her.
"Sorry, any excuse."
She laughed, her beautiful green eyes sparkling with mirth and happiness. Breaking away from James' embrace, she followed Sirius, Remus and Peter out of the room.
***
"Are we all set to go then?" Sirius asked, turning to face them all.
"Actually, I think I'll stay behind. I have some… um… stuff to take care of," Peter mumbled, before scuttling off towards the stairs.
"What's up with him?" Lily asked, wondering why Peter was in such a rush to leave.
"God knows. He's probably hungry."
Remus rolled his eyes. Sirius’ constant jabs at Peter were starting to come out a lot more now that they were in seventh year.
"So, I'm in charge of alcohol and sweets, Lily’s in charge of food and invitations, and Remus is in charge of decorations and balloons," Sirius said, pushing back a grumpy looking portrait of a king to reveal a passageway.
"I never knew about that," Lily said, indicating the passageway.
"Yeah, well, there are probably a lot of passageways like this that haven't yet become known by the student body. We, as the Marauders, pride ourselves on knowing that we can map out Hogwarts probably even better than the founders."
"Really?"
"You bet."
They walked down the passageway and ended up behind The Three Broomsticks. They split off, Lily and Remus going to Flourish and Blotts to pick up invitations and decorations and Sirius going into The Three Broomsticks to convince the bar manager that he was over eighteen and buy firewhiskey and butterbeers.
“Meet back here in an hour?” Remus called after them.
“See you then,” Sirius called back.
***
Peter returned to the common room late that night, he knew that the others would be visiting James so he wouldn't have to worry about any awkward questions. When they came back he could just pretend to be sleeping. He had received his instructions from Snape but he was having doubts. But then with Lord Voldemort once you were in, you were in and you didn't have a choice in what you did. He knew that what he was doing was wrong but he was too far in to stop now. He looked around, at the Marauders' mess, all the memories scattered across the floor. He felt so low; he couldn't believe that he was about to betray his friends.
***
After Remus and Sirius had left the hospital wing, Lily stayed. She liked to watch James sleep. She watched as his chest heaved in and out and his lips moved to the rhythm of his breaths. The wind, coming from the window, gently ruffled his hair.
"Stop staring, come over here and kiss me."
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
"No, don't worry, you didn't. Besides it's worth being woken up for, just to look at you."
Lily's eyes filled with tears, nobody had ever been so nice to her. She felt like she didn't deserve it, she didn't deserve him.
"Why are we together?" she asked him. "Why did you wait around so long for me?"
"Because I love you."
"But what if I'd never come round, what if I'd never realized I love you?"
"I knew you’d realise eventually."
"How?"
”Because I know you. I know you probably better than you know yourself."
"You are amazing, you know that?"
"You're even more amazing."
"I love you."
"I love you more."
"Not possible."
They kissed for what seemed like a few seconds but, it was actually an hour. In the end Madame Pomfrey had to chuck Lily out, it was after hours.
***
Sirius was sitting alone in the common room, thinking about all the changes that had happened so far this year.
"Hey."
He saw Rose shyly approach him, a book in hand.
"I'm sorry I didn't realise anyone was down here," she said.
"Don't be sorry, I'm glad for your company."
She smiled as he grabbed her round the waist and pulled her onto his lap. She bent to kiss him. He had never in a million years pictured himself with her; she was so shy and good. He had always thought of Cady as the one he would end up dating. She was so outgoing, just like him. Maybe opposites did attract. Besides, when it came to kissing she wasn't quite as shy as one might have thought.
“Mmmmm, if I could kiss you every day for the rest of my life I'd be happy," Sirius said.
"That's fine by me."
They rolled off the sofa, entangled in each other laughing and kissing.
This is the guy for me, Rose thought as Sirius began to kiss her neck and run his fingers through her hair, this really is the guy for me.