Plan B
Prompt: Together
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Lily Evans, James Potter
Setting: Modern /muggle AU
531 WordsLily stared at her phone in mute horror. Tears burned in her eyes as the picture was seared into her memory.
It wasn’t that she was heartbroken. They had only been going out for three weeks and Lily had had her reservations about him – for a good reason, it would seem.
So that sick, sinking feeling in her stomach wasn’t really because Marlene had just caught the guy Lily had been seeing kissing the daylights out of some random girl.
It was because Lily had been supposed to meet up with her former boyfriend and current sleazebag of an ex in half an hour so they could travel together to Cokeworth to her parents’ annual summer garden party.
She could not show up alone – she’d told her family she was bringing in her new boyfriend. Petunia had recently got engaged and would without a doubt look down at her sharp nose at Lily while flaunting her engagement ring.
Worse yet, everyone was going to be there, including Severus.
Lily grimaced, remembering how he had accosted her last year in a private corner, apologising for the umpteenth time and all but professing his undying love.
No, she definitely could not go to the party alone.
What to do? How would she find someone to go to Cokeworth with her – in half an hour?!
Someone jostled past her, knocking against her shoulder with enough force to make her stagger.
Lily winced, realising all of a sudden that she was descending into a panic in the middle of a busy London street.
Another passer-by stopped beside her.
“All right there, Miss?”
Lily was ready to wave away the kind concern and assure the stranger that everything was fine – which it decidedly wasn’t – when she paused.
She gave the stranger a considering look. He was a young man, around her own age, with glasses and messy dark hair. He was quite good-looking, and obviously a kind person since he’d stopped to inquire if she was okay.
And hopefully, as he had stopped, he wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
“I’m having a bit of an emergency, actually,” Lily confessed, meeting the stranger’s eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to be free, would you? Right now and for the rest of the day?”
His eyebrows rose, but his hazel eyes flashed in interest and boldly looked her up and down.
“I might.” He grinned. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I need you to be my boyfriend,” Lily blurted.
He held up his finger and reached into the pocket of his jeans. “One second.”
He pulled out a phone, tapped on it quickly and expertly and pressed it against his ear.“Hey, Sirius,” he said, as the person he was calling picked up. He was holding her gaze as he spoke on the phone. “I can’t make it tonight.”
Lily’s shoulders slumped with relief.
“Because I have a date with my girlfriend,” he said into the phone, winking at her.
The corners of Lily’s lips twitched.
“The girlfriend I just met,” he said matter-of-factly. “Talk to you later, bye!”
He hung up on his friend and flashed her a bright roguish smile.
“So, love, where are we going?”
