Lily Evans doesn’t believe in I love you’s
“Did you hear Lily Evans doesn’t believe in I love you's?” It wasn’t exactly a secret. But no one knew why, until she decided to share a bottle of fire whiskey in the astronomy tower with James Potter.
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“Did you hear Lily Evans doesn’t believe in I love you's?”
“So like she’s never said it to anyone ever? But her and Calum dated for like 6 months! How can you be with your boyfriend and not tell them you love them. That’s just crazy!”
“Maybe it’s a muggle thing?”
****
It was no secret that Lily Evans didn’t say I love you. It was a well-known fact around Hogwarts. Sure the boys she had dated had told her they loved her, but she never once had she said it back. It was the one thing that caused the majority of her break ups. How do you continue to date someone if they don’t say it back? To most Hogwarts girls the idea was ludicrous, but no one out right questioned it to her face. They weren’t that mental. James Potter however was not ‘no one’.
“I can’t believe you don’t believe in I love you’s Evans” James said aloud to her as they sat together on the edge of the astronomy tower window.
He nursed a bottle of fire whisky in his hand, one that he and the head girl in question had confiscated only an hour or so before. Lily took the bottle from his grasp and tossed back a swig. The amber liquid burned the back of her throat as it went down. She coughed lightly as she passed it back to him, keeping her gaze on the dark deserted grounds toward the edge of the forbidden forest.
“I’ve never said that.” Lily commented, pointing a finger at him knowingly.
“Isn’t that kind of the point?” James scoffed, making more tentative sips at the fire whiskey. She rolled her eyes at him knowing full well he probably couldn’t see her that well in the dark. He was supposed to be her drinking companion and letting her bitch about her arsehole of an ex-boyfriend.
“It’s not that I don’t believe in love and I love you’s. I just don’t think I loved him. I feel like if I did I would know right?” She offered.
“I suppose you would. I still think the expected thing to do when someone tells you that they love you is to say the same back. I mean clearly you cared about the bloke enough to be shagging him.” James shrugged. Lily batted his arm playfully.
“You’re such a prick Potter.” She started. She reached for the fire whiskey but he held it out at arm’s length away from her. She huffed in annoyance and he handed it to her reluctantly. “You see, that's the thing Potter. I don’t want to tell someone I love them when I don’t. Especially not because he says it first. I mean really if he loved me that much it wouldn’t matter, he would wait for me to say it when I felt like it. He wouldn’t split up with me and we wouldn’t have caught him in that broom cupboard with his pants around his ankles on the 5th floor.”
She took another heavy swig as James offered her a silent nod of agreement. She wasn’t even that upset about the break up if she was honest. She couldn’t be angry at her ex for jumping on a rebound. She was more just miffed he couldn’t do it while she wasn’t on prefect patrols. Part of her wondered if he’d done it that way just to spite her. Another part of her played the scenario that this had been going on a lot longer than since they had split up that morning.
“I still reckon you should have let me jinx him. Just a little,” James said into the open air. There was a cheerful tone in his voice that told Lily he was joking, but all the same she imagined that given the chance the offer would be genuine.
“I’ll stick to wallowing in self pity and confiscated fire whiskey thanks,” she responded.
James offered her one of his signature smirks. Who’d have thought that pairing of them as head boy and girl would cause them to settle their differences and bond as friends.
“To be honest I only think he said it in the first place because we’d been going out so long and it was just expected you know. I don’t want someone to tell me they love me just because it’s expected.”
“What do you want, Evans?” James questioned.
Lily remained silent in thought. No one had ever actually taken the time to ask her what she wanted. Though deep down she knew.
“You’ll think it’s mad,” she said quietly. She turned her gaze to the bottle sitting in her lap, she twisted the neck of the bottle in her fingers causing the liquid inside to stir.
“Try me.”
“I don’t want someone to tell me they love me because we’ve been dating for ages or because it’s expected. I think that’s why I love you’s don’t mean so much to me. They’re just thrown around so casually. It’s like they don’t have the same value to them any more ya know? Like… I want somebody who’s going to say those things to me because they mean them. I want somebody who’s able to look me in the face and just be like ‘I got you’. Despite everything, despite the fact I’m a muggle born, despite the war. I want someone who loves me for me,” Lily admitted, refusing to look at James as she released her intimate thoughts into the cool night air.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then spoke her name softly. She didn’t respond and he shuffled himself closed to her until their shoulders were touching side by side. He said her name softly again, pressing a warm hand to the side of her cheek. She turned her head slightly and looked him in the eye. He looked serious and sincere.
“Lils” He said softly “I’ve got you. Until the very end, no matter what, I’ve got you”
Lily wasn’t sure who leaned in, whether it was her or him was insignificant. What mattered was both their eyes closed and their lips met, soft and tasting like the sharp bite of fire whiskey.
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not sure if i actually ship bartylily but i am very intrigued by them….would definitely read if u ever wrote anything for them 👀👀
how do u think them and jeg would interact?? i feel like the existence of bartylily would throw james & reg off so much lmaooo
CASS I ADORE U AND I’M KISSING U SO HARD FOR THIS it’s such an honour to hear that you’d read them if i ever write anything for them <3 (which i definitely will, they’re in my mind too often)
OOOOOOH I JUST GIGGLED OUT LOUD i think their reactions would be . very fun and wildly different. like reg would be surprised at first and i don’t think he’d get it. like barty, he has this specific view of lily in his mind and he doesn’t understand how barty could’ve fallen for her in the first place and viceversa. they don’t make sense to him but he isn’t . mean or judgemental about it, i feel like none of barty’s friends would be (they’d tease him and take the piss out of him all the time tho, bc that man is Down Bad). after he actually Sees them together a couple of times he starts to get it. they shouldn’t make any sense but they do and they work surprisingly well together so . he stops questioning it at some point and is just supportive
james however. is Appalled. Baffled. Disgusted even. this might just be one of the worst things that’s ever happened to him. it’s not even about jealousy, he’s with reg (sorry it’s the jeggy obsession) and only sees lily as a friend but barty is his Least Favourite Person in existence. he already has to spend too much time around him bc he’s reg’s best friend and now??? now he’s with lily??? bc not only they get along but they’re also dating??? yeah no Fuck That
don’t get me wrong i feel like almost all of lily’s friends wouldn’t take kindly to the news at first (obviously this depends on how u portray both friend groups and their opinions of each other but to me . they never truly get along u know) but i think that they’d grow to accept it at some point. even if begrudgingly. marlene and mary at least. the jury is still out about sirius + remus + peter
but james??? oh he Hates it. and Hates it forever. he’s happy to see lily happy, yeah, but that’s about it. he’s the man who gets up in the middle of the wedding to try and oppose even if he knows there’s no stopping them (reg is incredibly embarrassed and hating his life choices and trying to get him to sit back down) (barty finds it absolutely hilarious and is delighted to know he’s causing james this much turmoil even after so many years) (lily is very much Done and this is exactly why she didn’t want to invite james) (but barty needed reg there and everyone knows that reg and james are a package deal) (anyway i digress)
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to add onto that, i think lily’s skill for quick thinking and action in combat/high stress situations is severely understated. for example, halloween in 1981- when james tells her to grab harry and run, she knows they’re both wandless. she likely knows that by the time she gets to harry, james will be dead. but she also knows that if she makes it to harry before voldemort, harry has a better chance of surviving. she probably knew there was no time to grieve or contest, because that would most likely lead to them all dying for nothin. it’s not outwardly stated, but the implication of her quick thinking/action despite being in a life or death situation and also losing the love of her life is so amazing and i’d honestly love to see that explored more :D
Yeah I love this! We also see that James and Sirius look at her wand "warily" she's clearly a threat lol.
Harry is a character heavily guided by intuition and instinct (as opposed to Hermione, who represents the logical approach) and you can read that in Lily as well. She acts on instinct to protect Harry, her actions in SWM and Prince's Tale also read as very instinctive. She's good at potions, which I see as a very intuitive art, a "subtle science". Compare that to James being good at Transfiguration, which is associated with McGonagall-ish rationality, logic, pragmatism.
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