"No."
"Please?"
"No!"
"Lily, please!"
"No means no, Potter! Get out of my way!"
A deeply flushing Lily Evans shoved bodily past the tall, dark-haired boy obstructing her path to her next class, huffing and flipping of her long flaming hair, clutching her books to her chest like her life depended on it. The scruffy boy pivoted on one foot to watch her pass, then grinned lazily and loped behind her, falling in step next to her within a matter of seconds.
"Just one date, Evans. It won't hurt."
"Maybe it won't hurt me, but I don't think I could spend more than a few minutes with you without punching you in the face." Lily's large green eyes met James' hazel ones for a second, and disappointingly, he could see nothing but disgust in them. He frowned. "I can take a punch," he said, his lips forming what was quite nearly a pout. Lily could only stare at him incredulously before quickening her pace, hoping that the faster she got to her next class, the faster she would be rid of the lanky teenager who was tailing her persistently. She turned a corner and got a brief glimpse of the rest of Potter's gang, watching them with a mixture of expressions - Black with an amused smirk, as if he were betting on how long it would take Lily to give in, Remus with an exasperated look as he watched James chasing her, and Peter with an almost anxious look, although as far as she knew, Peter Pettigrew always seemed anxious.
James turned the corner with her, seemingly oblivious to her annoyance, although she suspected that was more acting than anything else. "James, leave me alone." Lily left no room for argument in her tone, but as usual, James pretended she hadn't said anything. "One date, Lily. Tomorrow's a Hogsmeade weekend. Just one date, that's all." He sounded almost hopeful, as if he was certain that she wouldn't shoot him down like she had been doing for the past two years. As she glared up at him (she was a rather petite girl and James was much taller than she), James took the opportunity to wedge himself in the doorway she had been about to enter. Lily growled in annoyance and, with a surprising amount of strength considering her size, put both hands on his chest and pushed him out of the way. "Next time, I'll hex you," she said heatedly, her lips curling into a snarl as she stalked off to her class, leaving a smirking James in her wake.
God, he loved it when she did that little annoyed growl.
James watched the slim, fiery-haired angel stomp off away from him with a lazy smile on his face, his eyes following her compulsively before she vanished around a corner, copper curls whipping out of sight. With an almost-weary sigh, he turned around and slipped out of the doorway, ambling towards his next class. Almost immediately, his three best friends joined him, the four of them forming a perfect diamond as they all but strutted down the corridor. Well, Sirius and James strutted, while Remus shuffled quietly behind them and Peter scurried. "I don't understand why you keep harassing her like this," Remus tutted after a long silence, rubbing the circles under his eyes as they passed a group of giggling girls. James scoffed. "It's not harassment, I'm trying to wear her down. She's in love with me, she just doesn't know it yet." All three teenage boys who so faithfully followed James through the twisting halls sighed simultaneously and shook their heads. That was James' defense for everything Lily-related. When she turned him down the first time, that was his first excuse, and he had been using it ever since. When Lily would brush past him in corridors without so much as acknowledging him, "She doesn't know it yet." When he cornered her in their fifth year and she slapped him across the face, "She doesn't know it yet." When he saw her kissing another boy and the jealousy made his chest hurt like his heart was being picked apart with needles, "She doesn't know it yet."
Sirius raised his eyebrow and objected - tactlessly, as always. "You've been asking her out every day for two years, Prongs. Maybe it's time to move on." James ignored that, like he ignored everything he didn't want to hear. The Marauders found it both endearing and annoying at the same time - while James' obstinacy could be hilarious to watch, it wasn't nearly as fun when it came to serious business. It was one of his worse traits. "She just needs more time," James insisted, and the rest of them let it slide. James could be reasoned with on most counts, but not when it came to Lily Evans, anything but Lily Evans. He had been in love with her for years now, and he was rarely attached to anything for more than a day, let alone a person for that long. He would fight for her, even if she would barely look at him. He had fought with boys with their eye on her, intimidated anybody who was thinking of asking her out and made it very, very clear that she was his. The first and only boy she had kissed had been hexed so badly that he was in the Hospital Wing recovering for two days and nobody had dared so much as look at her for a month. Sometimes he understood why she despised him so - his undying love for her was clearly scaring everybody away from her - but he regretted nothing. When she finally realized she loved him, everything would be alright. It was only a matter of time.
The group of four entered their History of Magic classroom right before Professor Binns floated in, as translucent and dreary as ever. They took their usual places and opened their textbooks, but James' mind was not on whatever the Professor was teaching now - he wasn't even following the syllabus anymore, he cared that little - but it was on that elusive red-haired, green eyed embodiment of perfection who so vehemently denied his advances. As the Professor droned on and everybody (except Remus, of course) began to nod off, James found himself picturing that flawless face glaring at him, and he smiled contentedly. Only a matter of time, he thought, only a matter of time.