A/N: Hello, lovely readers! We're back! This story is going to be your classic Lily/James story, but told in the format of the movie (500) Days of Summer. Prepare yourself for lots of angst. It is NOT necessary to have seen the movie before reading this, but you should still see it because it's really good. Well, do enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Especially you, Justin Smith.

Asshole.

This is a story of boy meets girl.

The boy, James Potter of Penarth, Wales, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a firm belief in his parents' love.

The girl, Lily Evans of Cokesworth, England, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long red hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing.

James meets Lily on September 1st, 1971, but it isn't until that same day six years later until he knows immediately she is who he has been searching for.

This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

Day (1)

Lily

When the Head Girl badge had been sent to her, Lily Evans had cried and squealed and jumped around, letting herself for just one moment become one of those teenage girls she always despised. Her mum had kissed her on the cheek and her sister had given her a nod of approval, but nothing more. When she told her father on the phone of the great achievement, he too congratulated her, promising a big fat kiss on the cheek when he next saw her.

Now, as Lily stumbled through King's Cross Station, balancing all of the belongings she needed to bring for the new year, she suddenly wished she had never been given the badge that sat on her chest. Because there, standing in front of her, was James Potter, who appeared to be horsing off with his partner-in-crime, Sirius Black. Remus and Peter joined in on the fun, all laughing loudly and ruff housing in the middle of the station.

It wasn't the presence of Potter, exactly, that really made her skin crawl but rather the presence of the badge that sat on his chest, almost identical to the one that was pinned to her cardigan. The only difference was the word on the bottom, reading Boy rather than Girl. Most people would believe that Lily would despise the fact he got Head Boy. Some may even believe she would go straight to Dumbledore and complain. But not many would actually think she would regret getting her position, going so far as to consider resigning.

But there she was, thinking of a way she could discreetly slip the badge off and pretend she never received it in the first place. A visible frown adorned her scrunched up face as she glared right at the group of troublemakers. Really, who did they think they were? They were all just so cocky and on top of the world, it drove her absolutely bonkers.

Instead, however, of approaching them, she decided to take the high road. Yes, instead she just stormed past them, stumbling along with her many belonging flailing behind her. And even then, Potter had the nerve to give her the once over.

She felt his eyes trail up her legs, which had gotten quite toned from all the hiking she did with her cousins that summer, over her arse, and up to her face. Lily suddenly regretted using Mr. Magic's Straightening Elixir to straighten out her usually tangled mane and that touch of mascara she had borrowed from Petunia. No, she wasn't obsessed with her looks, but she had wanted to look good for her first day as Head Girl. Seems like that had gone to waste, for Potter was the only one who noticed.

Anywho, she bustled into the compartment, one at the back that Alice and her had decided on through owls just a few days ago. When she go there, however, Alice hadn't arrived yet. Lily set her things down, her owl cage on the seat next to her and her luggage in the compartment above, before propping her feet up and letting her head loll back.

Her summer had been fair. Scratch that, it had been amazing, one hell of a summer. With her cousins on her father's side, she had gone backpacking around, mostly in Greece and Turkey. Petunia had refused to come, even though their father offered to pay her fair too, claiming she wanted to stay home and relax. Lily, however, had taken up the offer, graciously taking the large sum of money that her father offered up.

Now, while Lily wasn't one to accept money, she felt like she deserved this from her father. After he had left, taking the long-legged blonde he had been sleeping with for months along with his fortune, Lily had been devastated. For months, she would only see him for one or two hours, before he had to zip off to somewhere else, his briefcase a constant by his side. When he offered the trip, she had immediately taken it, using it as a consolation prize for him actually being there.

Lost in thought, she didn't notice the compartment door sliding open. She did, however, notice the extra person in the room, when slender arms wrapped around Lily's shoulder and pulled her into a bone crushing hug.

"Alice," cried Lily happily, snapping from her daze to embrace her best friend back. "It's so good to see you!"

"You, too! Oh Merlin, let me see it," commanded Alice, pulling back to inspect the shiny new badge. "Oh, Lils, I'm so proud of you."

Lily nodded in thanks, a sick feeling coming to her stomach as she once again remembered who her co-Head was.

"You don't look too happy," said Alice, "Why don't you look happy?"

"Potter."

Alice rolled her eyes, giggling as she said, "What did he do this time?"

"He's Head Boy."

She cocked her head to the side, obviously pondering my statement, before replying, "To be honest, it's not that big of a surprise. Sure, he's a Marauder, but he's really smart and has great leadership skills. The pranks even subsided a bit last year. He's really pulled his act together."

"Are you joking me? Potter? James Potter? Are we talking about the same person? About the toe-rag, prattish, girl-loving, bullying, pranking-pulling James Potter? Best friends with Sirius Black?"

Lily could go on all day about Potter's unattractive qualities, but she would have to go on all day, because all of his qualities were unattractive. The way he ran his hand through his hair, the way he popped his gum, the way he tapped his quill constantly on his desk. Every single goddamn thing he did found a way to crawl into her brain and make her want hex him into the next century.

"Lily, he's not all of those things anymore. He's changed a lot since fifth year."

"Changed my arse," Lily scoffed.

Alice just shrugged, muttering a quick whatever, before changing the subject by saying, "So tell me all about your trip to Greece!"

Lily was thankful for the dropped conversation, content to clap and squeal and ramble on about her exciting summer.

The time came, however, for Lily to go to the Prefect's compartment, and it was a time she very much dreaded. She huffed and pouted as she waved goodbye to Alice, before making her way to the front of the train.

As she was walking, she waved and smiled at her friends, blushing red at the congratulations of the badge on her chest and mumbling a thank you. Approaching the compartment, only a few steps away, she was taken aback when she saw Severus roughly pushed past her, obviously having stormed out of one of the nearby compartments.

"Severus," she shouted after him. He turned around, surprised not only by the use of his first name but at the fact that she was actually speaking to him. Well, shouting was more like it, but still. "No running on the train."

He stood there for a moment, frozen, before he whipped back around and stormed away (though not as fast as he had been before). With a triumphant smile, Lily burst through, into the Prefect's Compartment, to see that most of the prefects were already there, with Potter slouched off to the side, happily chattering with Remus. He was waving his hands around and gesturing them all over the place. Those actions alone peeved off Lily.

"Potter," she called. In response, his head snapped up and a dopey smile grew on his face.

"Evans," he responded, standing up and swaggering over to her. He through an arm around her shoulder, which she promptly through off, shivering at the fact that his arm had touched her. His disgusting, germ infested arm had been around Lily's shoulder. That was not acceptable.

"Rule number one," she sneered, "Don't touch me."

"Rules? What rules?"

Lily crossed her arms and replied, "The rules that you will follow if you don't want to be castrated during our rule as co-Heads."

Lily felt eyes on her, for when she looked up, about half the prefects were staring up at them, hoping for a snippet of their conversation. In response, she opened the door to the compartment and pointed out into the corridor, hoping to get a few words in with him before the meeting.

"Fine," he grumbled, his shoulder dropping as he dragged himself out. "Come out here to yell at me, eh Evans? Or maybe you just want a quick snog?"

"Rule number two," she stated, "No innuendos."

"Come on Evans," he retorted, "Taking jokes away from me is worse then cutting off my ba- I mean...uh...privates."

"I'm not taking away jokes, I'm taking away inappropriate jokes."

She thought she heard him mutter under his breath, "Same thing," but chose to ignore it.

"Rule three, we are not friends. I don't want to be your girlfriend, your friend, your acquaintance, your snog-buddy, I don't even want to be your enemy. My point is, I don't want to be your anything. You may talk to me only if the situation presents itself, like in class if we are partnered together or you have a question about Head's duties. Got it?"

"Damn, Evans, you've got it that bad that you have to make up all these rules just to hide your undying love?"

Lily didn't even flinch, rather sighing and saying, "Potter, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I don't like you. I don't like the way you do everything single thing you can just to annoy me and basically, I'm sick of it. Please, let's just get through this year in one piece."

He grumbled something unintelligible, but Lily just dropped her head in her hands, choosing to push past him and back into the compartment instead of arguing with him more.

And by the end of the meeting Lily knew one thing for certain, surprised she hadn't realized it before. Her feelings for Potter really had changed, his behavior that day really shaping them up and making her come to the conclusion.

Lily Evans absolutely and completely loathed James Potter.

James

He had been laughing about something Sirius said-nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that didn't happen everyday of his life. But then she entered the picture.

Coming straight out of the banister that separated the Muggle platform and the wizard one, towing her trunk in one hand and carrying her owl's cage in the other, with the glittering Head Girl badge pinned onto the front of her navy blue cardigan, Lily Evans came into his life once again.

She looked quite the same as she did a couple months ago, but she also had several differences to her appearance. He didn't know where she went over the hols, but it was definitely not within the country-her lightly tanner skin tone said so. Her red hair was straightened, something he was not used to, and wished it was back in its usual curls. Her curls were so beautiful.

Because he wasn't ashamed to admit, a quick inspection of her physique provided more than satisfactory results-Lily had always had a nice body, but now her legs were more toned and she displayed them nicely underneath her jean shorts. And even though her facial expression seemed to darken the second she noticed him-dammit-she still had a radiant glow about her, as if she was utterly relaxed and happy and excited all at the same time, and those emotions reflected out onto her physical being.

Her eyes, however, had not changed one bit. It was her eyes that were the most familiar, the sparkling green that James found himself being most drawn to. Which said much, because Lily Evans truly was an extremely lovely girl.

How could James have thought for one moment that he wasn't completely in love with her?

His feelings for her were nothing new-he had come to terms with his crush on Lily years ago-but that was the first time he had ever acknowledged it as anything more than infatuation. But now he know that it was so much more than that.

He, James Potter, was in love with her, Lily Evans.

Now if only she didn't hate him.

He couldn't help it that whenever she was around, he had a habit of making a complete idiot of himself. She just had that effect on him. She brought out both the best in him and the worst in him, but it seems as if the only one she ever noticed was the worst. But not today.

It was on that day, September first, 1977, that James resolved to show Lily that he really was better than the James she had seen. He came to this decision exactly forty-eight seconds after realizing he was in love with her. But only took him another two seconds to start putting that plan into action.

"So, Evans is Head Girl, I see? Can't say that's really much of a surprise. We all expected it," he said, not bothering to let Remus finish what he was saying.

"Oh, dear. Not poor Evans again. Don't you think it's time to give up, Prongs? She does kind of hate you," Sirius Black replied, not bothering to be gentle about acknowledging her dislike for James.

"Lily doesn't hate him," said Remus, another member of the notorious Marauders. "She just hates that fact that he could be so much more than what he is, but doesn't make an effort to be that. It's not you she hates, Prongs, but the things you do or say or, well...are. At least, around her. She knows you're probably not so bad whenever she's not around."

"Then why won't she give me a chance?" James mumbled, feeling both uplifted and let-down by what Remus said.

"She thinks you act like an idiot to spite her, to really get on her nerves. She thinks it's you that hates her and make it your mission to get on her every last nerve," replied Remus.

"That's bullshit," James said with a frown.

"I know that," Remus responded, "But maybe you should make sure she knows that."

"How do you know all of this anyway, Moony?" Sirius questioned. "Either you're much better friends with her than any of us assumed, or you've suddenly developed an extreme talent for Legilimency."

Remus shrugged. "We had to talk about something during prefect patrols, didn't we? You can only discuss things like teachers and classes and Quidditch for so long."

Suddenly, a thought, a little bubble of hope and excitement, popped into James's head. "Do you think me and her will be patrolling together? Since the two of us are Heads?" Remus nodded.

"Heads have rounds together every Sunday. And tonight, as well, since it's the first night." James could've kissed Remus for disclosing such exciting information.

The whistle then sounded on the train, notifying students that it would be departing soon, and James motioned his friends forward, heading to find the compartment that they always sat in together. "Gents, this is going to be our year. I can feel it. Great things will happen this year, I know it. This year, I'm going to win Lily Evans's heart once and for all!" he exclaimed with the obvious sound of excitement creeping into his voice.

He chose to ignore Sirius when he heard him mumble to the other two, "He says that every year. So far, it hasn't actually happened." Because this time, he had a feeling it would.

Starting with later that night, which approached much sooner than he had anticipated. Before he knew it, he and Lily were departing the Head's dormitories to begin patrolling the corridors. Alone. Just the two of them. In the dark, empty hallways. In which anything could happen.

The first several moments were held in awkward silence, seeing as neither of them were entirely sure what to do. James assumed that Lily was trying extremely hard to ignore his presence, while he was trying extremely hard not to do something stupid. After two uncomfortable minutes of trying to figure out what to say, he figured he talk the safe option at making conversation.

"So, how was your summer?" he said, his voice coming across louder than expected in the silence.

"Er, what?" replied Lily after jumping slightly at his unexpected question.

"Your summer. Did you enjoy it?" he clarified, swinging his lit wand around, looking for anyone who might be out of bed at this time.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked again. James resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her dim-witted response.

"It's just a question, Evans. Did you enjoy the holidays?" Her confused expression soon turned to a glare as she scoffed at him.

"No, you can't just ask me that, Potter! We agreed that we weren't going to talk unless it was absolutely necessary, and this isn't one of those situations!" James resisted the urge to say, "No, you agreed to that, I didn't," instead choosing to remain silent and let her rant. "Besides, it's not like you would give a shit about my summer."

"Okay, that's a little harsh," James replied, surprised that she would say something like...well, like that.

"Oh? How so?" she countered, once again fixing him with a glare.

"Just because you'd rather have nothing to do with me doesn't mean I don't...that I don't care, Evans! I mean, I liked you for the past, what, three years now?"

"Oh, please! You did not like me. You hate me! You're always trying to mock me or taunt me or-"

"Make small talk with you?"

"Exactly! If you actually had any feelings for me at all, which you do not, you would have the common sense to leave me alone, Potter!"

"And what if I can't?" James yelled, interrupting the end of her last statement. "What if I can't leave you alone, huh? What if I've tried to leave you alone, believe me, I have, but every time I just keep coming back?"

"But why?"

"Because I don't know why! And maybe, I'm just trying to find out!" Both of them were silent after that outburst, breathing heavily due to their screaming match and fixing each other with identical glares. After a few tense seconds James broke eye contact and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I know I've been a complete arsehole to you in the past, Evans. I get that. But I don't want to be that guy anymore. Can't we just start over, or something? Pretend all of...this never happened?" he said quietly, patiently waiting for her answer, which seemed to take forever.

"You can't erase the past, Potter."

"I know. Believe me, I'd erase all of it if I could. All I'm asking is for us to just...just move on?" Lily stared him down, and for a second, she looked like she might actually say yes. But James soon realized that he should've known better than to think that.

"I don't get it. Why are you trying to do this? Why do you think I might actually agree to just...forget everything?"

"Because I'm sick of this, of all of it! I'm sick of the fighting, and you hating me, and I just don't want it anymore. I never did, Evans-and that too. I'm sick of the bloody surnames. Don't you think it's a little immature now? Can't we just grow up and call each other 'James' and 'Lily'? You can't say that doesn't sound at least a little bit appealing to you. It would make both of our lives a lot easier." Again, there was silence on Lily's part as she stared him down.

"Potter, you want me to forget what you did, what you've done for the past three years? Does that mean you want me to forget everything, you want me to go back to being friends with Severus? Because things like that just can't be forgotten, time can't be turned back and it's selfish for you to ask that."

James sighed. "I'm not asking for us to forget everything. That's impossible, given everything that's happened between us. I'm just asking for us to...to move on. To get over it. Put it behind us. We don't have to be friends, or even acquaintances, just for us to not be...this, whatever this is."

"How do you know we won't just go back to being this? You don't. How am I supposed to know that the guy you were, isn't the guy you are now? How do I know that guy won't come back?"

"Because, to be honest, Evans, I just don't want to be that guy anymore. Isn't that enough?"

"Are you saying that you used to want to be that guy?" she said coldly.

"Come to think of it, no. I never did, actually. My fourteen-year-old self just couldn't bother thinking of another way to get your attention, to get you to notice me, to talk to me at all, and then it just stuck. But all the time, I was just beating myself up because I wanted there to be another way to get your attention, but I was too stupid to actually stop being that guy!"

Lily look flustered, running her hands through her hair and turning away from James. "I...I don't understand what you're saying..."

"Well, let me clarify for you, Evans. I liked you. A lot. Always have. Hell, to be honest, I still have at least some sort of feelings for you! That's why I'm trying to make things better between us! Because I don't want to-"

"No, stop, stop, stop!" Lily cried, looking furious once again. "You don't like me. You can't like me. I don't know why you're saying that, but if you think it's true, then I'm sorry to say you're mistaken. You...you're full of shit, James Potter! Just...leave me alone, okay? Because despite whatever you may be trying to do, things between us can't be fixed. You can't just go back and change them. So please, just stop trying to!"

And with that final word, she turned and stomped through the corridor briskly, looking as if she could want nothing more than to just get away from James.

He sighed, leaning his head against the nearby wall and wishing, not for the first time, that he could have a conversation with Lily Evans that didn't end in yelling.