I don't know why I wrote this, but I enjoyed it. Hope you do too! Just a bit of light reading.

'Why doesn't she like me? Tell me please, for I am at a loss to explain.'

'I know –'

'I complement her, I give her nice things; sometimes she's even lucky enough to receive a quick snog from me –'

'Oh Merlin –'

'– But all she does is throw it back in my face. My poor, battered face.'

Silence.

'Why, Wormtail? Whhyyy Moony? Whhyyy, Padfoot, whhhyyyyyyyy –'

'STOP!'

'Mmmph?' James Potter looked up woefully at Remus Lupin, whose hand was clamped around his friend's mouth.

'Just stop, James. Please.'

James looked sorrowful for a moment before nodding in defeat. Remus released his grasp and collapsed onto his bed with a heavy sigh of relief. Suddenly –

'Please, please just STOP THE MADNESS!' shrieked a voice from the corner. James, Remus and Peter Pettigrew spun around in shock to face Sirius Black, who was currently sat hunched over on the floor of their dormitory, rocking back and forth with his hands over his ears. 'I can't TAKE ANY MORE!'

'Padfoot! Padfoot, it's okay, he's stopped.' Remus jumped up and pulled his friend's hands away from his head.

'Huh? Oh – oh…I guess he has, hasn't he?' He looked up at his fellow Marauders and gave a weak chuckle.

James rolled his eyes and batted him with a pillow. 'Sorry guys,' Sirius said, wiping his forehead. 'It's just so ingrained into my head, I hear it all the time, thinking it's real. It's a…a recurring haunt…y'know?' he finished, shivering slightly.

Remus looked at his friend sympathetically and Peter clapped him on the shoulder. 'We know, we know…' he murmured quietly.

'Okay!' James said abruptly, thinking it was best to end the insanity that was taking place in the dormitory. 'We need to fix this. Now.'

'Fix what?' His three friends looked up at him from their traumatised circle.

James stared at them. 'Evans!' he shouted. 'We need to fix Evans! How is she ever going to fall in love with me if we spend all our time moping up here?'

'Someone, kill him –'

'Okay, let's think,' James paced the room, stroking an imaginary beard, ignoring Remus's comment. 'What will make Evans fall in love with me?'

When no-one answered, he looked at them expectantly. 'Well?'

Sirius stuck up his index finger in a light bulb motion. 'I have a feeling we are missing an obvious solution that could have been used…about the first time after you asked her out. In FOURTH YEAR.'

'Yeah. What's your point?'

Sirius looked murderously at James. 'My POINT is that we have wasted the last 3 years using stupid, muggle, girl-seducing tricks, when all the time we could have used…a love potion.'

There was a pause.

'You know, I'm proud of you, Padfoot,' murmured Remus. 'That is…ingenious!'

'Yeah!'

'Woohoo!'

'Thanks be to Merlin!'

Cheers and whoops rang out from the seventh year boys' dormitory and half the common room jumped in surprise.

James sank onto his bed, relieved at having finally found a solution, the result of 3 years hard work. 'So,' he said cheerfully. 'Who knows how to make a love potion?'

They all thought for a moment. Simultaneously, James, Sirius and Peter turned to the only Marauder left.

'Oh Merlin.'

'Right. All sorted.' Sirius emerged from the corridor into the bathroom again, dusting his hands together.

The other three looked up at him from their spot on Moaning Myrtle's bathroom floor, where a potion was bubbling excitedly between them. 'Sorted what?'

Sirius opened the door wide so they could read the sign he conjured up and stuck onto the door.

OUT OF ORDER.

'Now, no-one will come in here and we won't be disturbed. Good, yeah?'

They nodded faintly. Sirius continued on, 'I reckon we will have paved the way for future, secret potion-makers, wanting to pick up chicks or…or for more serious business such as…I dunno, sneaking into the Slytherin common room!'

'Hahaha, yeah!' James laughed.

'Yeah and planting nifflers there!'

'And you've ruined it,' said Remus.

'No, no…that's a brilliant idea, Padfoot!' James looked inspired. 'We should think about that for the end of term maybe…' Sirius puffed out his chest proudly. 'But right now, we have some Evans-catching to concentrate on.'

They turned back to the potion. 'Are you sure that's what it's supposed to look like?' Asked Peter of Remus, doubtfully.

Remus glared at Wormtail. 'Do you want to make it?' He demanded. 'It's fine, it's fine…it just needs a touch of – Waaaaaghhhhhhhh!'

The potion suddenly turned black and spat out a bubble of glob onto Remus's cheek.

Sirius shrieked. 'Moony! Moony, are you okay? Is your face burning? Are you dying? Tell me what to dooo!'

Remus sat up slowly, looking quite the sight. 'I…think I'm okay…as long as I didn't swallow any it should be alright…' he touched the side of his face tentatively. The black blob didn't move.

'I think it's stuck there, Moony,' said James uncertainly.

Remus look mortified for a second and then shrugged. 'Ah well. I'll just tell Madame Pomfrey it's a side effect of the full moon.' He glared and Peter and James, suddenly. 'And thanks for your help. I might want to kick Padfoot most of the time but at least I knew he would have come to my rescue.'

Sirius grinned and winked at Remus, while the other two looked sheepish. 'I'll be your knight in shining armour, don't you worry Moony.'

'And we're back to normal.'

'Except that you look like you've been crapped on by a hippogriff.'

'Thank you, Prongs.'

'Anytime.'

The Marauders went back to staring at the potion. 'Can anyone else see the irony?' Asked James, eventually. 'We need help with the potion…from Evans.'

Sirius sighed. 'Come on then, let's go find her –'

'Sit down, Sirius.'

'Okay – here's the plan.'

The Marauders were huddled in a circle in the Entrance Hall, just able to glimpse the famous red-headed target of the day. They had eventually perfected the potion and now it was down to business.

James gave them all a brief overview for the eighth-thousandth time before turning around and preparing himself. 'Why are we getting briefed so many times?' Peter whispered to Remus. 'We're not even involved in the plan – it's only him!'

'Shush!' Sirius gave Peter a sharp tap on his face, his narrowed eyes never leaving his best friend, as he concentrated. 'Go on Prongsy, my son…you can do it!' he muttered.

The three remaining Marauders held back nervously, as James entered the Great Hall.

'Alright, Evans?' he said cheerfully, strolling over to Lily as she glanced at him and looked away quickly. Weird. 'How are you doing on this fine January morn, when the sun is out – err –' he glanced at the grey ceiling –'and everyone is happy and bright, including myself! As soon as I saw your lovely face, methinks what a happy, happy day this is, full of laughter and – and red hair and, oh! Oh no! I seem to have tripped! I seem to have knocked into you! What a clumsy idiot I am, bumbling around, not knowing which way is up –'

James could have continued for a while – possibly years – like this, however he was concentrating on slipping a small vial discreetly into his pocket.

'Potter. What –' Lily sighed, seeming more exasperated than annoyed, for which James was grateful. He was expecting a slap in the face and a kick to the groin at the very least. 'What are you doing?' She almost smiled. This – well, this was heavenly.

However, in the current circumstances he thought he better get out of there ASAMP (As Soon As Merlin-ly Possible). 'Oh, you know me, just being a tosser. Well, better scram, got some things to do, people to see, t-shirts to buy…' he drifted off, just in time to see Lily rolling her eyes good-humouredly and picking up her goblet of pumpkin juice.

He missed the curious but thoughtful glance she sent in his direction.

James walked triumphantly past the Marauders, murmuring out the corner of his mouth, 'And we have lift-off…'

James was looking stonily at Remus, as he had been doing for the past two hours.

'I'm sorry, okay? I've never made one before and –'

'Love potions are meant to be instant, Moony. Instant. Evans is currently –' they looked down the noisy Gryffindor table where Lily was chatting happily to her friends, eating lunch. '–chatting happily to her friends, eating lunch.'

'Obviously, something went wrong.'

'Obviously,' James snapped.

Remus threw his fork down with a clatter. He stared at James murderously for a few minutes, while Sirius and Peter ate their lunch silently with their heads down, not wanting to infuriate the Potter-monster anymore.

Just before Remus was about to say something, James felt a light tap on his shoulder and whipped around, cricking his neck.

'Hi, Eva – owww! Um, what – what can I do for you?'

Lily looked shocked. 'I, um…I wanted to talk to you actually but – err, shall I take you to Madame Pomfrey?'

'No, no it's fine! I'm fine – err, let's talk! Come on,' he got up and sent a secretive but thrilled look at the rest of the Marauders, only two of which responded with a happy look back. The werewolf of the group simply huffed.

They watched James follow the love of his life out of the Great Hall, his head stuck on one side, but seeming cheerful none-the-less.

As soon as they found a secluded area of the Entrance Hall, James spoke. 'So, what did you want to talk about?' he asked, smiling at Lily sideways.

'Okay, uh…well, firstly I'm just going to ignore the fact that you look like that.' Lily said.

James tried to nod, but found that that made it worse. 'Please do. Continue.'

Okay…' Lily gave him a shy look. 'I…I know it hasn't always been great between us, James, but I've been thinking a lot about you during the last couple of weeks and I really think…'

James tuned out, his mind filled with joy. It was working! Lily Evans actually wanted to be with him! He had never felt happier in his life.

'…not sure what this is but if we don't try we will never find out…'

He began dreaming of life with Lily Evans. Getting married. Having children. Oh, it would be pure, pure bliss and he couldn't wait. They would be the most perfect couple ever!

'…took a lot of courage for me to do this but it just popped into my head today – I have to do it now! So…'

James wondered how he would keep up the love potion. Firstly, he would have to learn how to make it himself and then…where would he store it without her finding out? As he stared down at the beautiful girl in front of him, spilling out her heart (or what she thought was her heart), he asked himself: do I really want to take her life away?

Because that is what he would be doing. Taking away her free will and liberties and forcing her to him, even if she did not know it was happening. Could he do that to another human being, let alone someone he loved so much?

'…so I was wondering – and don't laugh – will you…will you go out with me?' Lily smiled tentatively at James, a truly innocent look in her eyes and he decided that he would have to tell the truth.

'Um…Lily, I'm so sorry. But –' he looked her dead in the eye. 'I can't. I want to so so much,' he quickly elaborated when he saw her face fall. 'But I can't. It wouldn't be fair to you.'

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Lily cleared her throat. 'Ri – err…right, yeah that's, um…yeah, so, okay. So, I'll just be going then…' James watched her turn to leave, feeling worse than ever.

This feeling did not last long, however, because out of the corner of his eye he spotted a powerful force running towards him, a maniacal expression on its face. Before he could react, the force rammed into him, throwing him to the ground and flinging two arms around his neck.

'What the -?'

'NADINE? What the HELL are you doing?' Wait, that was Lily, James thought. Why did she say…?

Oh no. Oh no, it was Lily's best friend, Nadine Summers, who had just attacked him. But that didn't explain why he wasn't dead yet – she seemed pretty crazy.

And then, as he finally listened to what Nadine was garbling on about, it dawned on him. This wasn't an attack of anger. This was an attack of…love.

Managing to push the drugged psychopath off of him, James scrambled to his feet in an attempt to right the ridiculous situation.

'Okay,' he panted, putting his hands up in front of him. 'Okay…what's going on?'

Lily, looking mad, opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything, Nadine interrupted her, bounding towards the Marauder again.

'Oh James! I'm so happy that I have finally found you! We can be together forever; you, me and our children!' She exclaimed, holding his hands and resting her cheek on his chest.

'Children?' Lily mouthed silently over Nadine's shoulder, looking unimpressed.

James shrugged as if to say, 'I have no idea, either!' But actually, an idea of what might have happened was starting to form in his head.

Apparently, Sirius came to the same conclusion at the same time bounced out of the broom closet where he had been listening from the whole time.

Lily screamed. 'How – how did you get in there?' James wanted to ask the same question – he hadn't seen Sirius pass the two of them. He suspected, however, it might involve a stolen invisibility cloak.

But Sirius wasn't answering anytime soon. Instead he was looking at Lily intensely, as though trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

'Evans, may I…may I ask you a question?' he asked furtively. James rolled his eyes. 'It's a question with an answer that may answer all of the mysterious on-goings today,' he said with wide eyes.

Lily sighed and folded her arms, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. Sirius took that to mean 'yes.'

'Did you drink your pumpkin juice this morning?'

(That morning)

'Seriously, if it wasn't for these blueberry pancakes, I would not be getting up in the morning,' Lily stated.

'I know! It's like the house-elves can read my mind, I swear,' replied Nadine through a mouthful of chocolate waffles.

The girls munched in silence for a while. Lily reached for the pumpkin juice and poured herself a goblet, before asking her friend if she wanted any. Nadine accepted.

Suddenly, she started frantically trying to hide herself behind Lily, for she had just seen the Marauders appearing in the Entrance Hall.

'Oh shit! Lily, it's Sirius – if he sees me he'll ask why I wasn't there last night!'

'I don't know why you don't just tell him,' Lily said casually, waving her spoon of syrup around dangerously. 'You have a perfectly good reason.'

Nadine glared at her. 'I don't think a perfectly good reason is 'I wasn't there because I was trying to charm my hair into turning blonde and instead I covered my face in spots!'

'Actually…it is, if you think about it –'

'Why don't you stop thinking altogether then?'

Lily ignored her and carried on. 'He'd probably be grateful that you didn't turn up for casual sex because you looked gross – think how devastated he'd be if he was completely turned off by you because of what he saw last night! Where else would he get his fun?'

She saw that Nadine was actually considering her suggestion. 'You're probably right – oh Merlin, James is coming over now! Probably to interrogate me about it, shit shit shit, what do I say? I don't know what to –'

'What? James is coming over?' Lily whipped her head around, caught eyes with the boy and quickly looked down at her breakfast.

Nadine just shook her head exasperatedly at her friend's complete obliviousness.

'Alright, Evans?' The familiar voice sounded out from a few metres away. 'How are you this fine January morn…?' Lily tried to concentrate, she really did, but it was just so – so hard when a cute boy was smirking in front of you, running his fingers through his delicious hair, speaking like velvet to her (even though what he was saying was complete crap) and generally being smooth and good-looking. Until –

'Oh no! I seem to have tripped! I seem to have knocked into you! What a clumsy idiot I am…' Lily was shoved forward into her plate, knocking over Nadine's goblet of pumpkin juice which went all over her waffles.

Ignoring her wails of despair, Lily turned to James, annoyed. Well, she meant to be annoyed but that probably wasn't how it came across, as she was trying not to smile at him, whilst interrogating him.

As he bumbled off, she picked up her goblet, before shooting one more, curious glance at his retreating back. What was it about Potter?

Nadine looked positively suicidal. 'Great,' she sniffed. 'I have no waffles, no pumpkin juice and – to top it off – it doesn't look like Black even cares that I wasn't there last night.'

Lily felt sorry for her. 'Aw, darling. Here – have my pumpkin juice. I don't want it anymore.'

'So, in answer to your question, no, I didn't drink my pumpkin juice, Nadine did,' Lily stated matter of factly. 'Why is that important, may I ask?'

Shit, James thought, she looks pretty annoyed. 'Er – no, no you may not ask. Sorry,' he finished lamely. The thought of Lily knowing about the potion was just too much to –

'It was because of a love potion!'

Then again, he clearly didn't have a choice in the matter.

Lily was looking at Sirius, her eyes narrowed. 'What love potion.'

James answered before Sirius. 'It was – it was a love potion…for you.'

'For me.'

'Yes.'

'But I didn't drink it.'

'Well I – I guess not.'

Lily thought for a moment. 'What was the point,' she said finally, 'in brewing and giving me a love potion if, the minute I ask you out…you say no?'

'Two reasons,' stated James without hesitation. 'Firstly, I decided I didn't want to be with someone who wasn't truly in love with me back. And secondly,' he looked at Lily. 'I decided I couldn't take away someone's life like that.'

Lily looked quite overwhelmed. 'That err…that makes sense. Um,' she licked her lips nervously, never taking her eyes of James's. 'I'll just be –'

'But there is something you could clear up for me,' James interrupted, his eyes twinkling. 'Why did you just declare your undying love for me –'

'Well I didn't –'

'If you didn't drink the love potion?'

Lily stared at him. 'Surely it's obvious,' she said quietly.

James stared back. Finally he nodded and moved towards her, one finger stroking her face. Lily's eyes fluttered close. 'Oh Lily. You've been cursed, haven't you?'

'What?' The red-head's eyes snapped open. 'No! James, you – mmmph!'

Lily shut up when James's lips took hers firmly. She smiled into the kiss and slid her arms around his neck as he pulled her closer.

They had quite forgotten that they had company.

Sirius rolled his eyes and muttered, 'About bloody time.'

Nadine, however, had a different response.

What Lily wasn't expecting was to be wrenched apart from her new boyfriend by someone else and slapped hard around the face.

'You bitch!'

'Wha –'

'Oh Merlin,' Sirius muttered. 'Sirius has to save the day once more.'

James had his hands up, expecting an attack from Nadine. However, none came. Slowly he opened his eyes to the sight of Sirius and Nadine in a deep snogging fest. As they emerged, Nadine had eyes for no-one but the suave boy in front of her. She didn't even give James a second glance.

'The only thing that can break a love potion,' whispered Lily, getting to her feet, 'is the kiss from the true-love.'

James frowned at her. 'And the anti-dote, love.'

'Yes, and that,' said Lily, rolling her eyes.

Nadine's eyes snapped to Lily and James. She quickly pushed Sirius off her, clearly returned to her normal state. 'Dear MERLIN, you better not be my true-love, Black.'

Sirius thought. 'Maybe a true-lust, eh?'

'I guess that would have to do,' Nadine sighed.

'Well, 'I've definitely found my true-love,' James smiled chees-ily.

'Aha – say that again and I will throw up on your face,' Lily said. 'However…I do have a question to ask you, James.'

'Yep?'

They turned to face each other. 'James Potter,' she took a deep breath. 'Will you go out with me?'

Suddenly, James wrenched his hands out of hers. 'No, Evans, just leave me alone, you arrogant toe-rag!' He cried, storming up the corridor away from her.

Lily gaped, before something snapped.

'POTTER!'