title: come talk to me
author: alex (maraudings)
rating: K
word count: 1,478
disclaimer: harry potter and its characters belong to jk rowling. for fun, not profit.
a/n: i think i'm just always going to not be satisfied with what i write? idk. but thank you bea for beta-ing!

( also up on ao3 under same penname. link on profile if you're interested )

- come talk to me -

He is looking at her.

She could always tell when he was— the back of her neck grew hot and sounds seemed both sharper and muddled and she became very aware of every little thing she was doing, every little detail of her appearance. And on this morning, she was writing an essay and he was looking at her.

She could feel it, his gaze. At first it was just a small prickling—a little warning that someone happened to be looking her way. And it never lasted long, perhaps only a few seconds. Most of the time she wouldn't even bother turning around, waving away the feeling and carrying on.

But eventually it became harder to do so.

Perhaps it was the frequency, or the intensity, but soon she was unable to ignore it. The back of her neck grew hot and sounds seemed both sharper and muddled and she became very aware of every little thing she did, every little detail of her appearance.

And on this morning, she was writing an essay and he was looking at her.

It wasn't necessarily a nuisance, per say. Something was oddly comforting about it—a class without feeling the weight of his gaze always seemed a little off to her. But it just did something to her. She has yet to figure out exactly how to explain it or even if she liked it, but there was just something about James Potter's gaze.

He put her in this situation often.

Perhaps it was the rush. Perhaps it was the knowledge that if she strayed her attention from the parchment in front of her, if she gave in and raised her gaze, her eyes would find his. Her green would meet his hazel, and for a second she would forget the reason she was even in the library. Just a second.

She smiles to herself and shakes her head. A rush, right. Get a grip.

It was a hard feeling to shake, she will admit. It pulled at her attention until she was rendered unproductive and overall useless and had no choice but to pack up and find somewhere else to work where the smallest of looks doesn't send her off her axil. She might as well call it quits now, because she knew that eventually she would stop writing her essay and words would leave her head and she would be left with nothing more than an attention span desperate to be set free.

And eventually, she knew that she would let that attention go. Just for a moment.

Sighing, Lily began to gather her books, and spent the walk to the door trying extremely hard not to look anywhere but her incomplete two feet of parchment.

-x-

Part of her preferred how it used to be.

Everything was more direct, more black and white. He spent most of his time trying to get under her skin and she knew it. She spent most of her time trying not to hex him and he knew it. They knew were they stood with each other. Simple.

Now she spends most of her trying to figure out what he was trying to do.

And it's when she's heading to the front of the Charm's classroom to turn in that essay that she realizes. She hasn't heard him speak in ages.

She has listened to him answer questions in class, and heard his laughter over meals, but she hasn't heard him say anything directly to her in what feels like forever. The most interaction they have in a day was the staring game, but it was one that they seemed to be playing by different rules.

Lily Evans missed James Potter. Imagine that.

If it were two years ago—hell, one year ago—she would walk herself straight to the Hospital Wing just for suggesting the idea. Because the truth of the matter was that James Potter was a complete and total prat with an affinity for showing off and what she always assumed was a superiority complex. And that was the thing, because whatever intolerable behavior he used to display has been noticeably absent.

Maybe he hated her. Maybe all this silent staring was the result of a loathing so strong it was hard for him to simply ignore her completely. Maybe the reason she could feel his eyes on the back of her head in the crowded common room was the years of her dismissal towards him (granted it was completely justified dismissal, but all the same).

A year ago she wouldn't have cared. But today she does, and that's what mattered.

Because it had to be the reason. And what a stupid reason it was.

He hated her? He felt betrayed that she didn't give him the time of day? The complete nerve of him. What about all the things he's done to her? What about all the times he annoyed her to no end, or tried to ruin her potions just because he could, or…

She's too angry to think of a proper list of just about everything he has done to her, but it doesn't stop her from trying. It's distracting her from her patrols, clouding her mind until the only thing she can think of is just how furious she was at him for hating her. Her knuckles went white around her lit wand and her jaw clenched ("Are you okay?" The Hufflepuff prefect next to her looked concerned.). He hates her? Well, she hates him.

It's a little after midnight by the time they've finished, and she's still angry.

She opens the portrait into the common room, and she's still angry.

There's a figure with messy dark hair sitting hunched over on the couch, and suddenly she's not.

She doesn't know exactly why, and certainly could never articulate what she thinks the reason is, but all her anger dissipates when she sees him. She doesn't hate him. He has yet to notice that she entered the room, but she doesn't hate him.

He's working on the Potions essay. She wonders if he thought to include details from their last class (as Slughorn hastily suggested over the ruckus of everyone packing up on Tuesday) and found herself stepping forward to ask. But something else comes out instead.

"Do you not like me?" She asks, sliding into the vacant spot on the couch.

He hadn't looked up once until she spoke, and when he did his expression unreadable. "Do you not like me?"

She felt her brows knit. "My feelings towards you are as neutral as they've ever been." That seemed like a lie, but she pressed on. "Lately I've just been feeling like you've been ignoring me, that's all."

Now he just looks confused. "I wasn't aware we were at a place where I could be ignoring you."

"Well, I mean… you haven't been irritating in a while."

"Oh," he says, laughing a little. "Thanks, I think. But I thought you didn't like me being irritating."

"I don't, but it's just weird without it. You haven't been gravely ill or anything, have you?"

"Evans, you care? I'm so touched," his tone is slightly mocking and her eyes narrow automatically and it's when she opens her mouth to hiss a goodbye and leave that she realizes he's playing. "I'm fine," he insists, fingers fiddling with his quill. "Promise."

"Right. Well, so long as you don't loathe my existence then I guess that's all I wanted to say. Sorry to bother you. Good luck on the Potions."

She rises to her feet and makes it about three steps away when he speaks again.

"I could never loathe your existence."

She turns back, and immediately wishes she hadn't.

It's that look. She knows it well. The crackling of the fire grew both sharper and muddled and she became all too aware that she hasn't slept in eighteen hours and her appearance probably gave this away. But there was something about him, something about this moment that finally made her understand that there was no way he did hate her. No way at all.

She manages a small smile, despite knowing it wasn't quite enough, and climbs the stairs to her dormitory.

The next morning she smiles in the middle of class at the heat rising to her neck.