Part 2

Lily had been talking to James for two months when he asked for a collab.

So, a week after that, he turned up in her apartment grinning that insufferable James Potter grin. 'Hello, Lily,' he smiled, and she grinned back at him, unable to help herself.

Oh God, he is so much hotter in person.

As soon as she thought it, she regretted it. Don't think stuff like that, Lily. She glanced at James, inexplicably wondering if he somehow knew what she was thinking about, but he was looking around her apartment and didn't seem to have noticed anything.

'It's so Lily-like,' he said thoughtfully. 'It's.... it's as if you were a room, this would be you.'

'That... makes sense. I guess.' Lily laughed. 'Seeing as it's my house.'

James walked through the hallway, his gaze lingering on the small paintings hanging on the white-painted walls, at the pictures of Lily and Marlene and her parents, and even the small one of Petunia.

That was the one he stopped by, of course. 'Who's that?' He asked, his hazel eyes bright.

'My sister,' Lily said, fighting to keep her voice even and emotionless. 'Petunia.'

'Pretty name.' James seemed to sense that he shouldn't ask any more questions, and E continued down the hall, smiling at a picture of baby Lily. 'Aww. You looked adorable.'

'Looked?' Lily huffed in fake annoyance. 'I still look adorable, thank you very much.'

He glanced back, half laughing, half smiling, and pushed his glasses up his nose in a motion that made Lily's heart flutter despite itself. 'Very true,' he agreed, and she felt herself blush. Lily, she scolded herself. What is up with you today? You're a mess.

*****

Later they filmed the video, after talking about anything and everything for a few hours too many. And buying Oreos from a local shop.

'So it's dark outside,' Lily began. 'So excuse the bad lighting- James decided he needed to buy some Oreos.'

James grinned at the camera. 'And Lily decided she needed to make me run there with her.'

'Horror of horrors,' Lily grinned, watching James as he leant back against her sofa, one arm over his head and his legs draped over her rug. 'How will you ever cope?'

'I won't. You've killed me, Lily, you've killed me. I'm dead. Look, I'm going to start rotting soon, and you'll have the police on you.' James sighed and shook his head. 'You had such a bright future ahead of you as well. It's sad, truly sad. I'm heartbroken.'

'James,' Lily warned, crossing her legs as she sat down and started to scroll through Twitter. 'If you start talking to me we'll never get this video done.'

'I won't talk to you then. We can sit in silence.' James mimed zipping his mouth.

'Anyway,' Lily rolled her eyes at James and turned back to the camera. 'I'm Lily Evans and this is James Potter from the Marauders, and we're doing a Q&A because that's how we met, and we're sentimental pieces of shit.'

'I disagree with that on so many levels,' James said, lazily prodding Lily with his toe as he stretched his foot. 'Okay, first, we're doing it because we're lazy and couldn't think of anything else. Secondly, I'm not sentimental. You are.'

'What happened to staying quiet?' Lily complained. 'That was nice. Apart from it lasted about two seconds.'

'There are gonna be so many bloopers from this,' James laughed. 'And it's gonna take forever. I'm not even kidding.'

'Better get started then, James,' Lily said, and scrolled past through a few tweets. 'Okay, James, I dare you to propose to Lily- Jeez, okay. Started off a bit weird. Let's not do that.'

'I could totally do that,' James said, standing up and then getting down on one knee.

'Why the hell did you stand up?' Lily giggled.

'I don't know, Merlin, Lily. This is one of the biggest moments of your life, stop complaining!' He scowled and rummaged around in his pockets before coming up with an empty gun packet which he twisted into a ring. 'Okay. Lily Elizabeth Evans-'

'My middle name is Marie,' Lily interrupted.

'Lily!' James cried in exasperation. 'I'm proposing, don't interrupt!'

'I can't believe my soon-to-be-fiancée doesn't know my middle name,' Lily told the camera.

'Lily!' James frowned. 'Okay. Let me carry on. Will you, Lily Jane Evans, do me the honour of becoming my wife?'

Picking up the ring from James' hand, Lily grimaced slightly. 'How could I say no?' She asked, then spotted a piece of gum still in the gum packet. 'Ooh, yes! Gum.'

'I love the way you're more excited about the gum than you are about my proposal,' James said, scrunching up his nose in embarrassment. 'I'm hurt, Lily, truly hurt.'

*****

The next six months was a blur for Lily- a blur of James and videos and subscribers. Her and James had gained a lot of media attention due to their 'chemistry' and 'obvious flirting'.

It wasn't obvious flirting. It wasn't even flirting, in Lily's opinion.

It was just... harmless chatting between friends.

Cheerful chatting.

Maybe with a tiny bit of flirting.

But if it was flirting, it was just because James flirted with everyone. Literally everyone. He flirted with guys, girls, old ladies, bus drivers, and pretty much anyone who seemed like they would be willing to flirt back.

That included Lily.

Because, hey, she was hopelessly infatuated with him, and she was pretty sure he knew it.

What was not to like?

James was hot. He had a beautiful smile, and he laughed a lot. He was a world-famous YouTuber, and he wasn't embarrassed to be seen in public with Lily, although he clearly didn't return her feelings.

Lily was lying on her bed, her feet in the air, on her phone, just scrolling through Twitter.

#jily was trending again. It seemed to be trending a lot lately.

Lily sighed, and clicked on a Jily shipper who she'd followed a few weeks ago. (Just because her edits were great. Not because of anything else. Totally. Not to send a sign to James that she had a crush on him or anything.)

Fuck Sirius ships Jily, she'd tweeted. #jily.

There was a link. Lily clicked on it, her eyebrows raised. Sirius ships Jily? What?

'I ship Jily so hard,' Sirius was saying in the video, sitting in front of the camera with James behind him and Remus and Peter next to him. 'Like, you guys don't know it, but James talks about Lily all the time. It's actually pretty annoying. It's always Lily this, Lily that-'

'Sirius!' James scowled, and he leant over Sirius' shoulder, clapping a hand over his mouth. 'Peter, it's your turn to do editing. Edit that out, would you?'

'Sure,' Peter grinned.

'You do talk about Lily all the time, though, James,' Remus pointed out thoughtfully. 'Maybe you should ask her out.'

'Can we stop talking about this with the camera still rolling?' James groaned, lying back on the floor. 'I don't trust Peter one bit.'

Text appeared on the screen. WELL DONE. YOU SHOULDN'T TRUST ME, AND YOU'RE WELCOME, JILY SHIPPERS (AND LILY EVANS).

Lily covered her mouth with one hand, torn between laughing and... and, well, she wasn't sure what else she would do.

I'm sure Sirius was just kidding around, Lily thought, but she had a smile on her face.

Word count- 1246

So I'm in a huge jumper listening to the Skam soundtrack and catching up on all the chapters I need to write. I hope you are all having a lovely weekend! 💞