four-shot, written for the "Four Seasons" challenge. Lily/James.

Read on.

"LILY!"

Lily grimaced as Petunia ran into her room. "What now, Tuney?" she asked.

"DON'T CALL ME TUNEY!" Petunia scowled at her. "You can be so annoying sometimes! GOD! Vernon's coming over today: don't do anything stupid, don't make him mad and don't be you. Enough said!"

"Alright," Lily said, sighing. "But Petunia...isn't this stupid feud gone far too long? I mean, I'm on my seventh year of Hog-"

"DON'T say the name," Petunia snarled. "That's something that makes this family different. Why couldn't you just be normal?" With that, she slammed out of the room.

Sighing, Lily went back to her homework.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair at their house. Petunia and Vernon spent it giggling and looking at each other, and Lily spent it quietly picking at her food. Occasionally, she would speak when her father asked her too.

When Vernon went, she overheard him asking Petunia, "Does she still go to that freak school?" And Petunia replied, "Yes, she does. It's something to be ashamed about, but I think that I deal surprisingly well with it," in that silly falsetto of hers that she used whenever Vernon was around. Lily grimaced and ran upstairs.

In there she collapsed on the floor and stared at the ceiling. Then, she jumped up and drew out a long wooden box from under her bed. In it was a delicate photo album, and a small wooden box with a golden lock.

She took out the photo album and flipped to the first page. There was a picture of all of her friends. She smiled to see them. It was so good to see them, and a little flash of guilt swept through her to see that she wasn't smiling in the picture. In fact, she was scowling.

"I remember this," she told herself. "I had just given James a good talking-to, and he had snapped something very mean to me." She grinned. "The only time James Potter had snapped under duress."

Then she picked up the wooden box. It was delicate, and long, shaped like a picture, and thin. With a key around her neck, she gently opened it. In it was her biggest secret.

A good friend of hers that was called Mr. Squeakers (a little gerbil that could appear from place to place) had stolen it for her. It was the only thing that she had ever stolen in her entire life. A picture of James Potter.

He was smiling at her, a big, beautiful smile that made her smile back at him. His eyes sparkled, that hazel. And even though she knew that he couldn't hear her, she said, "I've liked you for a long time, James. Why can't you ever like me back?"

He just grinned at her.

So Lily, sighing again, slid the photo into the box and locked it again, a wry smile on her face. She liked him, but not the him as the pompous prat that he was when he was at school with his friends. And she only liked him because in first year, he had picked up a book for her, and given her that big smile, and she had fallen for him.

When he had fell for her in return, it was all she could do from swooning. That is, until he started to publicly display his affection, something that made her shrink. And all his faults! They were there, glaring. His big head. His overflowing ego. Everything.

"LILY!"

Lily locked the door to prevent her older sister from entering.

It hadn't always been like this with her and her older sister. They used to be the best of friends, the confiders who always stayed up late. Red hair and blonde hair mingling together, giggles, everything. Until she started talking with Snape, and their relationship had grown apart.

Okay, so maybe Petunia had been a little bossy in their friendship. But she would give for them to be friends again.

She sighed (yet again) and threw herself on her bed.

"Why must I have to like the most arrogant guy in school?" she groaned into her pillow. "How many broken threads are there!"

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