A/N: This is the intro/background to what will eventually become a fic that covers Lily/James from 6th to 7th year. The format of this first chapter won't necessarily be the format of the future chapters. It is also significantly shorter. While the focus of this fic is Lily/James, that's not all it will be about. The First War is happening concurrently, and I love the marauders and such so they'll be present just about as much as Lily and James. Of course, there will also be O/Cs.
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Disclaimer: You know how it goes.
It had happened by chance at first. Assigned seating on the first day of classes was alphabetical according to first name. After first year, their professors didn't see the point in changing up the seating chart, even if Sirius Black had magicked them all to switch his place with Isabelle Tunkins so that he could be next to James as well. Besides some minor disturbances, the chart worked.
Some time after third year, the professors stopped forcing seating charts on their students. But James and Lily still sat next to each other. It was out of habit more than anything, which would be the answer they'd give if you asked them why. To the pair of Gryffindors, it just made sense. And in third year, when James and Lily were the only two Gryffindors taking Ancient Runes, it made sense they'd sit together there too.
Just because something makes sense, doesn't mean it ensures peace. From the first day they met, the two fated souls were at each other's throats. He was obnoxious, and she didn't care much for teasing. For a few months during third year, he lived to turn her face the same color as her hair by saying just about anything that he knew would bother her. This included asking incessantly about muggle appliances, questioning each of her freckles in turn about their habits, and insisting that he was better than her at everything (except the girly stuff). It usually went that Lily would spend two days ignoring his petulance, and then blow up in potions, using all of her wit to insult his funny hair and mucky draught.
Sirius insisted that it was this interaction that lead to Lily's first Slug Club invitation.
For those first few years, Lily and James spoke little to each other except for those seemingly meaningless interactions during class. When James wasn't picking on Lily, he was fooling around with Sirius or passing notes to his other two mates. Outside of classes, Lily had her friends to distract her from the hazel-eyed boy that just woudn't leave her alone. But in their third year, in a class full of Ravenclaws, James and Lily learned that they were, surprisingly, capable of having a conversation. That was also when James realized that Lily was in fact, very funny. Lily thought it might have been Severus' absence that let her open up to James more, because James didn't bully her best friend in that classroom. In that classroom, James had no Sirius and Lily had no Severus. And although they rarely had conversations that went deeper than talking about the going-ons in the castle, when Lily's father died at the end of third year, James made sure to pay extra attention to his notes so that she could copy them when she returned.
By their fifth year, Lily wished for nothing more than to be left alone by the insufferable toe-rag that was James Potter. By Halloween of that year, he had asked her out four times, in big show-offy ways that Lily was sure was meant to impress everyone in the castle besides her. For the most part, James and Sirius were preoccupied in classes, planning and plotting and everything in between. So Lily was, thankfully, left to chat with her other neighbors and pass notes to Sev. But when Potter decided that Lily might think of him fonder if he turned her Sleeping Drought into a Singing Drought that pronounced her love for him five minutes before the end of potions class, Lily decided that she absolutely hated James Potter. She told him so, right then and there, and spent the remainder of the period shouting that his messy hair was just irritating and that he wasn't actually that good at quidditch and that his nose reminded her of a flobberworm. Four days later, Lily congratulated him on his flying during the match against Hufflepuff, after she found a drawing of Potter with flobberworms coming out of his nose in her notebook. It was the first of three times that they would shout at each other that year.
The second time was when James' father passed away. He was old, and it was in his sleep, and James only missed three days of classes to be with his mother because OWLS were fast approaching. Sirius had gone with him, but they hadn't been seen speaking for weeks. Lily and Remus found James during one of their patrols, and although both were willing to let him off without so much as a lecture, James pounced as soon as he saw them. With the marauders' relationships already strained, Remus had simply walked away from his friend. But Lily stayed and let James yell at her about some nonsense, and didn't flinch when he started to cry. She summoned a glass of water when his voice got hoarse from the shouting, and sat against the wall when he grew silent. Eventually he sat down too, and the pair listened to the quiet, until Lily remembered a joke that James had told her many months ago. He had told her it was one of his father's favorites. It was the first time James smiled in weeks.
The third time was the last week of testing, and Lily was tired of shouting. She had already had a row with her best friend, and didn't fancy shouting any more. Whether it was loyalty, self-righteousness, or habit, she ended up doing so anyway—in front of the whole school no less. James never apologized for what he said, and neither did she. Not even in their coy little ways they had grown used to over the years. Instead, Lily ignored Potter for the rest of term, and James spent the rest of it trying to force Snape to apologize, ignoring the nagging feeling that giving Snivellus tentacles wasn't going to get Lily to smile again.
They didn't speak until September 1st, when circumstances prevented anything else.