Who: Willy What: Really cute things. When: After this post. (BACKDATED!) Where: Right outside of the main entrance. Warnings: It’s probably too kissyface to be PG. Status: Completed
The journal ward had surprised Will. He’d been doing his damnedest to give Lily her space and let her figure things out, but just when he thought he couldn’t standing it anymore, the ward had come. Throwing on his jacket, scarf, and hat, he bounded out of the Hufflepuff dorm, heading straight for the Great Hall, determined to get there before Lily. Since he did not see her by the time he emerged from the hall leading to his dorm, Will assumed he had achieved his goal and leaned against the wall. A picture of calmness and nonchalance.
He probably should have thought of mittens, Will thought absently as he waited. Shifting his stance, he thrust his hands into his jacket’s pockets, pleasantly surprised to find a pair of woolen mittens. His mother’s doing, no doubt, to charm his mittens to always return to his pockets. While he would ordinarily be annoyed at her actions, he was too giddy to care.
Lily was nervous. Very nervous, in fact. She had spent the past two weeks worrying about The Will Issue, and after careful thought and guidance, she’d made up her mind. She was going to go for it. So, she wrote the note and after a bit of conversation, went to get her things. She took her time in arranging her hat on her hair. She put on lip gloss and then promptly wiped it onto a tissue - no one liked kissing glossy lips. Glossy lips were only for show, and there would be kiss- Oh, Merlin. She was wasting time and needed to get going. Unlike her friend, she always kept her mittens in her pockets. Throwing her Gryffindor scarf around her neck, she gave the mirror one last look before heading to the hall.
He was there when she arrived. Of course he was - she should have assumed he would be. He had a habit of doing the opposite of what she’d like him to do in an ideal world. “Hey.” Lily couldn’t help but smile, just a little bit. This wasn’t a situation she’d ever imagined she’d be in, and it was funny. She wished her confidence would stop the rollercoaster and Jekyll/Hyde action, but at least there was something she could laugh about. Something was going to happen and it might be something good.
Will straighted when he saw Lily approached, a goofy grin spreading across his face. “Hey,” he said, wondering if he should offer his arm or something. Maybe not as he didn’t want to think Lily to think he was treating her weird just because they may start kissing on a regular basis. “So, shall we take a walk?”
As they began to move out to the grounds, Will began wonder what they were supposed to talk about. They both knew what was going to happen once they had a little bit of privacy. “So, what are your thoughts on the next Quidditch game? Who do think’s going to win, Salem or Durmstrang?”
With a nod, Lily left the hall with Will. She knew that she didn’t want anything to get strange between them, and was trying hard not to think about that, or think about acting normal, or anything at all. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a very ‘in the moment’ kind of girl and never stopped thinking, so she settled on a happy medium. She would focus on minute details instead of the thoughts in her head, and thus have a focus without getting weird.
"Durmstrang, definitely," she said, pulling her mittens out of her pockets and tugging them on. She wasn’t thinking about quidditch, though. Project Focus had turned her attention to Will's hair and the fact that it was sticking out of the bottom of his hat, needing to be cut. Again. She noticed the way it attempted to conceal his ears from the world. She noticed the sound of their shoes on the stone and front doors, which were getting bigger and closer every second. They really were a beautiful set of doors... "Agree or disagree?"
“Hmm.” Will stroked his chin, a decidedly less grand gesture when one was wearing mittens. “I’d normally say Salem just to be contrary, but really it’s no contest. The Americans have spirit, but that doesn’t win games.”
That pronouncement made, Will settled back into silence, trying to think of things to say without making things awkward. Though he was probably making this whole thing awkward by not talking. Fuck. Girls were confusing. “So have much homework to do tomorrow?”
“Nothing for herbology and a short essay for history due, and nothing else because I’ve finished everything assigned so far,” she rattled off. Homework was something Lily didn’t have to give any thought to. She just did it. It would be wrong to say that she liked doing homework, but she did have excellent study habits. She’d been studying the doors, and they had reached them, so she pushed one open to allow for their exit.
It was cold outside, and Lily put her already-mittened hands into her coat pockets for warmth. “Did you know that giraffes are 6 feet tall on average when they’re born? You’re nearly as tall as a baby giraffe.” She grinned. Perhaps thinking about everything but the matter at hand really had helped some. Giraffes didn’t have anything to do with anything at all, but it was conversation, right?
Will shrugged. He also had that history essay, but it was something he could knock off in a few hours before the class. It wasn’t as if Binns actually read their work. He knew that for a fact. He had hypothesized, tested, and come to an accurate conclusion. “Overachiever,” Will said affectionately as they began down the steps. “I have some more Charms reading to do.” Which would get done the meal before the class.
“I... did not know that.” Will liked a lot of things about Lily. The nervous tick regarding the random facts were one of his favorites. He wanted to turn to her, ask if she just wanted to stop beating around the bush, and just start kissing already, but he knew that would just earn him an eye roll. “So what does that make you, half a baby giraffe? Or wait, that’s Eddie.”
Lily wrinkled her nose. She didn’t particularly enjoy being called an overachiever, but it was a fact, and she knew he didn’t mean it maliciously. “I could say the same about you... overachieving in putting things off.” She wanted to punch him in the arm or something, but it seemed forced. It was taking extra effort to focus on things outside of her head.
“I am more than half your height,” she argued, stopping. “Look.” Lily turned to face him and put her hands on his shoulders. Using the height difference, she lifted herself onto her tiptoes. Do not bugger this up, Lil. “And I can’t imagine what half a baby giraffe would look like; you’re mad.” Smiling a little, but not grinning because there were things dancing in her stomach and threatening to make her sick, she bounced back down to her usual height.
As she put he hands on his shoulders and bounced up, Will’s own hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her close. “Oh, that’s easy. Just imagine a baby giraffe with no legs. Or a four skinny legs with no body and neck.” He was grinning like a stupid fool now, but he didn’t care. Nobody was watching them, and if they were, they could fuck off.
“Yeah, I probably am,” he told her, voice soft. Leaning down, he quickly captured her mouth with his, stealing his first kiss of the night. “But if I wasn’t mad, I’d be rather boring.”
She couldn’t help but giggle at the image of giraffe legs without a body. It broke the tension that she felt she’d created with her nonsensical comments... of course, it was all in her head, but still felt good to relax again. He was smiling, and she was happy that he was so happy. The giddiness was contagious.
It was odd to her that Will’s hands around her waist felt natural. Perhaps it was okay because he was her best friend in the world, and she trusted him. She even trusted him to kiss her, apparently, and he did - a short, sweet kiss, remarkably better than surprise kiss on New Year’s had been. “I like you mad,” she said quietly, trying to fight off her own version of a stupid grin and failing. The things in her stomach had not quite stopped dancing; they picked up their tempo as she lifted her face and kissed him, this time a little longer. It was long enough to feel that his lips were warm despite the January air, and that maybe he wasn’t bad at kissing after all.
“I’m mad. You’re mad. We’re all mad here.” He didn’t remember where he had heard that phrase before, but it suited the occasion. “So I think we should just agree to be mad and get back to that kissing thing.” Alright, not the smoothest statement he’d ever made, but Will wasn’t looking to be smooth. Lily would like just call him out on his bullshit anyway.
Just because he could, Will drew her close again, not really looking to kiss her again, not that he would refuse a kiss, but because he liked being close. And it was cold. Best to preserve body heat by snuggling close. “So what are you doing for Hogsmeade?” he asked, just in case she didn’t want to stand outside in the cold and kiss.
The lack of suaveness wasn’t a problem, of course. Lily liked honesty, even Will’s brand of it. Especially Will’s. She countered with a dare, testing the waters. “You know, I don’t know if I have enough evidence to know that you’re good at it.” The statement was followed by a mischievous look, something altogether rare (but not unheard of) for the girl. She egged him on because it was fun; it was easy to make flirting work within the context of their relationship. It worried Lily a little bit in the back of her mind, because she didn’t want to rush anything. It felt good, that was definite. However, she was more experienced than Will and didn’t know what that meant for their new... whatever it was.
She settled into the embrace, quite grateful that he had deemed it acceptable to snuggle. She’d had to steal hugs from him before. “Eating, drinking, and being merry,” she answered. Her Hogsmeade plans were usually fluid and involved friends. Nothing specific had been planned yet; Lily just knew she couldn’t shop. Christmas had exhausted her funds for a while.
“Are you planning on giving me homework?” Will asked with a raised eyebrow and mischievous tone to match. “Who knows, I may actually get that assignment done first thing.” He knew she was daring him and who was he to resist a dare. He leaned down to give her a quick kiss, just a hint of what could come. Because he would make her work for it.
“All good plans. Think I figure into them somewhere?” He didn’t want to monopolize all her time. While they had been good friends before, they had often done their own things, with separate groups of friends. “We could go to the Three Broomsticks or get a donut or something.”
“Homework,” she repeated, considering the word. Two could play at that game. “What sort of homework,” Lily said, moving closer to Will’s face - close enough to kiss him again, but not kissing, “would you get done first thing?” She really was the worst at being patient when it came to things like this, but she wanted to win, whatever that meant. Either way, they both won, right?
She laughed lightly, breaking her concentration and snuggling into him a bit more. “You always figure into my plans... but yeah, lunch sounds good.” Lunch was easy and a sensible first “date.” Being only a small portion of the day, lunchtime with Will meant that she could spend some time with her other fifth year friends. She and Will wouldn’t have to hold hands or anything silly, because she knew how much he disliked that.
“The fun sort of homework,” Will left off the obviously, because he thought it was rather implied. “So what do you think?” he whispered . “More fun homework?” He kissed her again because he could .
Lunch was a good idea. Which is exactly why he had had it in the first place. “It’s a date.”
Lily rolled her eyes; really, it was only a matter of time. “If you’re given homework, you have to put effort into it. Like you mean it.” It sounded cheesy, but she wanted a proper kiss, so she was going to have one. The cold was becoming increasingly more noticeable and was worse whenever a gust of wind blew. A proper kiss could warm a body. Closing the small gap between them, she kissed him again, this time staying for a while. Gingerly, she moved a hand to the back of his neck. It was purely driven by endorphins and thoughts of ’hey, I’m kissing my best friend and it isn’t a bad idea after all!’ She was surprised that she had come around to the idea in the first place, and even more surprised that she enjoyed it.
Her thoughts interrupted her once more. “If Saturday lunch is a date, and we are kissing and going on dates, are we dating?” she asked slowly, pulling back from the kiss. Admittedly, she hadn’t put much thought into the terminology and logistics of things before jumping in.
“Yes.” For Will, he decided that it was best to keep his answers short and sweet. There would be less for Lily to argue with and pick through. Dating shouldn’t be about pros and cons, which she probably would be debating in her mind. He didn’t want any of that. Lily should try being impulsive every once and awhile. “We’re dating.”
The matter decided in his mind, he leaned down and kissed the redhead again, lingering long enough to bring his hand up to cradle the back of her head. If the other kisses had just been hints at what could have come, this kiss was the feature presentation. There weren’t going to be any secrets when it came to that.
“We’re dating,” she breathed, grinning. That would make her Will’s first girlfriend, and - oh, that was nervewracking. But she would not bollocks it up, because it was the best thing that had happened in a long time. She already adored him, and the more she thought about it, the more she noticed things that she’d found attractive before and ignored, or things that were newly attractive, like his mouth. She was about to add something about how it was a good idea, but he kissed her before she could. Lily appreciated that he’d listened to her talk about effort. This made being outside in the cold worth it.