A/N: Okay, this is 100% better than my other Jily :D sorry for everyone asking me not to leave the other alone, but I hope this makes up for that! And sorry for any typos/lack of italicizing/bolding when you think it should be, I typed the first 2000 words of this fic on my phone's memo program xD Enjoy!
Lily sat with Alice in the front of their Charms class, very typical of them, prepared to listen and perform well. They were taking down a note as Flitwick recited the importance of proper wand movements when conducting the more advanced spells of seventh year charms, and Lily deep into the lesson. She was scribbling frantically trying to record all of the key points, when she felt something hit the back of her head. She turned around quickly, and to looked to the ground, trying to find what had made contact.
She spotted a crumpled piece of parchment, and she picked it up. Unravelling the creased paper, she found a note scribbled inside.
'You look cute when you're concentrating, Evans.' It read, in a hasty scrawl.
Lily rolled her eyes and crumpled the note fiercely, tossing it into her bag where it would stay until she could dispose of it later.
She returned her thoughts to the class, and figured that that was the last of that nonsense, when she felt another piece of parchment hit her, this time her shoulder. Once again, she bent down, rather annoyed, and picked up the scrunched ball of paper.
'Aw don't ignore me Evans. It was a compliment!' This one said, by the same hand. She threw it very obviously into her bag to join the other and when back to work, looking at Alice's roll to catch up from where she left off.
There was only a minute left to that period, so no other disturbance came her way. She and Alice packed up their things, and made it towards the door, a Lily told her friend about the notes, which she hadn't even noticed.
"He's never going to relent." Alice laughed, shaking her head.
"He's annoying." Lily gritted her teeth.
"You're not going to like this when I say it hun, but he's not that bad. Compared to what he was like..."
"No." She crossed her arms huffingly as they began their decent to the Gryffindor Tower.
"Yes. He's not the bully he was. And he's not as childish."
"Throwing notes at me during class isn't childish?" Lily asked.
"He was trying to compliment you because you won't talk to his face!" Alice argued happily, determined to make Lily stop pretending she doesn't like him.
"I talk to him!" She said defiantly.
"Only during the Heads meetings, from what I've seen."
"No..." She protested, but trailed off, realising Alice was right.
"You got to give him a chance, Lils." Alice said, and they reached the Gryffindor Common room, leaving Lily to her thoughts.
At Hogwarts, life was pretty routine. Well as routine as a hidden school of magic can be with what's starting to look like a war on the horizon. Every day, Lily would go to classes with her friends, eat lunch with them, finish class, hang in the common room until dinner, after which she would retire to the hidden Heads dorms that she had been living for two months, since September. Not that she minded the routine, life at the school was the best she had ever known, and there's just enough crazy to keep everything feeling new.
That evening, however, her conversation with Alice kept rotating through her head. She hadn't realised - or hadn't wanted to realise - just how little credit she gave him. Its true, he wasn't the bully he had been for so many years. He actually helped people, in his role of Head Boy. And he had stopped asking her out incessantly, and annoyingly. He wasn't perfect, he was still a Marauder, the Marauder, but he was infinitely times better than he had been since she had known him. He left her alone.
The more she thought about, the more she realised that today was the most annoying thing he had done since the year had started. He had only complimented her, after all. Maybe she should stop holding him to be what he had been. Maybe he had grown up. Maybe she should too.
But Lily Evans would never give in to James Potter. She was far too stubborn.