Chapter one.
Lily Evans grudgingly looked up into the smiling smug face of James Potter looming over her prone form on the Gryffindor common room floor and thought furiously how she would like to be the one that would curse the smile from it.
She tried in vain to move her limbs but soon realised that James had not been lying when he boasted about the effectiveness of his body bind curse, so she lay there feeling a dull ache begin to slowly inch its way through all the tensed muscles in her body.
"If James Potter thinks this is the way to impress me." She thought furiously, her normally creamy complexion gaining a distinct rosy hue beneath her freckles. "Then he certainly has another think coming."
James Potter grinned and winked evilly into her face before straitening up to his full height of 5ft 9 inches and stretching his long muscled arms towards the ceiling. He yawned widely and tucked his wand into the back of his jeans pocket and ran his long fingers through his dark black, artfully tousled hair and then gave the small crowd surrounding the scene a broad grin and said jokily,
"And that Ladies and gents is the full extent of my excellent talent in curses." He spread his arms wide and took a small bow in mock modesty to his enthralled audience, who, amongst mixed laugher and scattered applause began to disperse slowly once again to the clusters of dusty, comfy armchairs surrounding the circular common room.
"No." Came a deeply amused masculine voice in James's ear, "That is, in actual fact, the full extent of James Potter's excellent talent for deeply infuriating and embarrassing the girls that he fancies."
"Oh and for also being a pompous arse." he added as an after thought.
James gave a small smile and turned around to face his best friend Sirius, who had crept up behind him and was now resting a severely ink stained, tanned hand on his broad shoulder and was failing to hide a broad smirk that was playing about his lips.
"As if I fancy Evans." James said in a very high pitched, totally unconvincing tone and blushing a charming shade of scarlet. He cleared his throat and said,
"I could do so much better than her." He wisely chose to ignore Sirius's snort of derisive laughter at precisely that moment.
Sirius and James had been best friends ever since they met on the first day of their first year at Hogwarts and though he sometimes would not like to admit it, Sirius knew James better then he knew himself. He had, of course guessed James's obsession with Lily Evans in the second year when he noticed James's seeming inability to speak in full sentences, his tendency to blow whatever he was working on to smithereens or his habit of slopping whatever he was eating down the front of his robes whenever she was around. He sympathised endlessly with James and like the loyal friend he was he sat and listened to the endless 'does she like me? Doesn't she?' debates and re played meetings, and the despairing 'she hates me' depressions that were a common occurrence for James Potter over the last six years that he had known Lily Evans.
Sirius understood, even if James didn't that the reason he got so upset with the fact Lily openly rejected him in every way was that James had never been rejected by anyone or indeed anything in his life.
Ever since the beginning of his school life James had been loved by all, pupils and teachers alike, there was nothing that he was not good at; he even had the brains to match his extreme good looks. Sirius had even once heard Dumbledore saying that he and James were possibly the most talented pupils Hogwarts had ever seen. And yet, to James's dismay Lily Evans, the one thing he wanted most in the entire world, and who he thought should be the person who should admire him most for all his abilities and talents, despised him.
Lily, in Sirius's eyes, for James was – And he hated to say it -completely unattainable as long as James remained so arrogant. Granted, he and James both had a lot to be grateful and boastful about, but, as their friend Remus Lupin often reminded them, this didn't mean they had to do so at every available minute. A lesson, Sirius thought with a smirk, that they both still needed to learn.
Lily Evans was, without a shadow of a doubt the most beautiful girl in their year. But what made her so beautiful was the fact that everybody seemed to know this but her. She was slim and pretty with a tiny waist and delicate features, she had long wavy red hair and striking almond shaped eyes that were almost too sparkling to look directly at. She also had a lively and fiery personality and to top it all off was extremely clever. Like James had been chosen as Head boy she had recently been chosen as Head Girl also, but, unlike James she was actually good at her job and never used her authority to her own advantage such as bribing the first years that have been caught snogging in the dark corners of the corridoors. James saw her as a goddess and still in this, his sixth year at Hogwarts could not resist showing off in front of her and ultimately making a complete prat of himself.
James gave Lily a quick glance as though to make sure she hadn't heard him talking about her and was secretly relieved to find her eyes unfocusedly staring resolutely at the ceiling.
He looked back to Sirius and shrugged his shoulders and attempted a nonchalant smile. Sirius gave a short bark of laugher and clapped James hard between the shoulder blades.
"Just go and talk to her instead of attacking her you fool!" He hissed jovially in his ear pushing James forwards towards Lily, "Girls love that."
James suddenly felt the funny sensation of his insides turning to lead as he walked towards Lily. He approached where she lay on the floor and knelt down at her head. He watched her pretty green almond shaped eyes follow his progress and then come to a stop looking piercingly into his own blue eyes. In spite of himself he felt his face grow hot and he looked away. He heard Lily give a small snort of disgust and felt embarrassed that she could hold so much power over him. He forced himself to look into her eyes as he muttered the counter curse.
Lily felt all her limbs slowly relax from the curse and she sat herself up on the Gryffindor common room floor rubbing her stiff neck. James stood up and offered Lily his hand with a grin to help her stand. She coked her head slightly to the side and arched her eyebrows menacingly at him and he hastily withdrew it in to his robes.
"Err...so...anyway...sorry about that Lil, Just mucking around, you know how it is." He stammered playfully. The withering look that Lily then gave him silenced any further prattle.
She stood up to face him and crossed her arms over her chest, "Oh no" Thought James suddenly, "now I'm really in for it." he hastily took a step backwards from Lily and gave a nervous half smile in her direction. Lily stooped down to the small chestnut coloured coffee table where she had been sitting working previously, before James decided to show off his Jinxes and 'mistakenly' accidentally-on purpose hit her with one for a laugh, and snatched up her wand. She straitened to full height and held it in front of her chest pointed directly at James's throat. She advanced dangerously and smiled a sugary sweet smile dripping with dislike.
"My name is Lily, not Lil" She spat at him "And if you ever come near me again, James Potter, I swear that I will hex you into the next century." She took a long deep breath and a large step forwards towards James, who backed away a little further.
"I will make you wish that you had never been born." She continued menacingly, "And if you ever, EVER pull a little stunt like you just did, let's just say you will not be reproducing any time soon." She took another long steadying breath and a step forward and rested her wand tip gently on the base of James's throat.
James's heart skipped a beat – she may be exceedingly angry and a little insane but, damn! He thought, this was sexy - If a little scary!
Lily swallowed hard and continued; evidently she hadn't finished: "You are an infantile, juvenile, pompous, puffed up arrogant little prat that, quite frankly, should do wizardkind a service by throwing your evil, whining, unappreciative, conceited arse of the top of the tallest astronomy tower as soon as possible." James's face had previously been showing amusement but at this it suddenly registered anger and he quickly opened his mouth to argue, however Sirius jumped in for him
"Come on Lily" he said in a reasoning, wheedling type of voice, spreading his arms wide, imploring to her better nature "He's not that bad – He's alright really, isn't he? Any girl would give their wand arm to be dating him!" He looked from Lily's livid flushed face to James's angry one and shut up.
"Cheers padfoot." James said with a cocky smile
"He's right you know Lily, one of these days you will succumb to my many many manly charms and realise that you were wrong and that I am, in fact one of the best guys around here ,Present company included" He winked at Sirius here who grinned back cheerfully at him.
"And if you don't realise that soon then I'm afraid I may not be willing to wait for you to regain your senses." He mock examined his fingernails here as though he couldn't really care and flashed Sirius a wink and then said,
"Come on Lily, let's kiss and make up shall we? And forget all about this?" He had gone too far here however and Lily could stand no more. She sighed and the angry look faded from her pretty features, she smiled a deceptively beautiful smile and her eyes twinkled at James in a way he had never seen before.
"Fine, I give in" she said sweetly, "Kiss this." And without a moments warning or hesitation she swung her right leg back and with the force of a rogue bull caught in a huge tornado charged it upwards and rammed her foot into his unprotected crotch.
Initially James did not make a sound. He clamped his mouth tightly shut and his face turned a vivid puce colour before he sunk to his knees on the stone floor with a huge thud and a massive wave of high pitched groaning. All the boys in the room either had expressions of pain or severe sympathy on their faces or were in taking their breath sharply as though they could well identify with James's pain, and Sirius, being no help at all of course, looked as though he may explode with laughter at any given minute.
Lily gave a triumphant smirk and watched James sink to his knees on the floor. She bent over him and half whispered to him so that it was audible to those nearest them to hear:
"Just for the record James – I would rather chance a kiss with the whomping willow then kiss you." She turned on her heel and marched out of the common room and towards the staircase to the girl's dormitory, snatching her school bag on her way. As she neared the door she wrenched it open and said quietly, more to herself then to anyone else,
"I can't believe that I almost liked you." she shook her head slowly almost at her own stupidity and walked out the room shutting the door and the laughter of the crowd surrounding James behind her.
An hour or so later the common room was slowly beginning to empty after the evening's excitement. James and his three cronies, Sirius, Remus and a pale, drawn faced malnourished looking boy named Peter sat around mulling things over. Or rather Remus, Sirius and James did, Peter sat with them looking twitchy and staring into the depths of the fire nearest him.
"Never mind prongs." said Sirius brightly "She wasn't so special anyway – plenty more fish in the sea and so forth." He looked at James who was sitting delicately perched awkwardly on the edge of a squashy bottle green sofa chair. When he saw the thunderous look on his face, he shut up quickly.
"Why does she hate me so much, what have I done?" Said James indignantly, shuffling on to the chair some more with a wince of pain and a sharp intake of breath.
"Er, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I'd say she thinks you're a bit of a twat mate, and a bit of a show off really." Said Sirius twirling his wand idly between his long ink stained fingers, "What was it she said? Oh yeah you're an infantile...arrogant...little..." Sirius continued brightly.
"Shut up" Said James quickly cutting Sirius off in mid sentence, "I heard what she called me, ok?" He flumped down on to the chair properly and yelped in pain from, his Lily induced injury and despairingly ran his hand through his messy dark hair.
"Did you also hear what she said before she left you for dead on the floor?" Said Remus lightly to the left of James.
James looked at him and shook his head moodily, slouching back into his arm chair, Remus continued,
"She said she couldn't think why she almost liked you James. Which suggests to me that you were probably winning her over before you pulled your little stunt tonight." Remus pulled himself out of his armchair and stretched lazily, he then said "I am off to bed now; I've got an arithmancy test in the morning. Night all." And with that he left the common room swiftly followed by Sirius and Peter, leaving James all alone with his moody thoughts.
An hour or two later when everybody in his dormitory had long since fallen asleep, James crept into his four poster bed, his blue sapphire eyes red and puffy, he slumped down and lay face down into the duvet without even taking of his clothes. When he finally did fall asleep with his thoughts about how stupid he had been, he had several fitful dreams, and when he awoke all he could think of was Lily.
Lily Evans grudgingly looked up into the smiling smug face of James Potter looming over her prone form on the Gryffindor common room floor and thought furiously how she would like to be the one that would curse the smile from it.
She tried in vain to move her limbs but soon realised that James had not been lying when he boasted about the effectiveness of his body bind curse, so she lay there feeling a dull ache begin to slowly inch its way through all the tensed muscles in her body.
"If James Potter thinks this is the way to impress me." She thought furiously, her normally creamy complexion gaining a distinct rosy hue beneath her freckles. "Then he certainly has another think coming."
James Potter grinned and winked evilly into her face before straitening up to his full height of 5ft 9 inches and stretching his long muscled arms towards the ceiling. He yawned widely and tucked his wand into the back of his jeans pocket and ran his long fingers through his dark black, artfully tousled hair and then gave the small crowd surrounding the scene a broad grin and said jokily,
"And that Ladies and gents is the full extent of my excellent talent in curses." He spread his arms wide and took a small bow in mock modesty to his enthralled audience, who, amongst mixed laugher and scattered applause began to disperse slowly once again to the clusters of dusty, comfy armchairs surrounding the circular common room.
"No." Came a deeply amused masculine voice in James's ear, "That is, in actual fact, the full extent of James Potter's excellent talent for deeply infuriating and embarrassing the girls that he fancies."
"Oh and for also being a pompous arse." he added as an after thought.
James gave a small smile and turned around to face his best friend Sirius, who had crept up behind him and was now resting a severely ink stained, tanned hand on his broad shoulder and was failing to hide a broad smirk that was playing about his lips.
"As if I fancy Evans." James said in a very high pitched, totally unconvincing tone and blushing a charming shade of scarlet. He cleared his throat and said,
"I could do so much better than her." He wisely chose to ignore Sirius's snort of derisive laughter at precisely that moment.
Sirius and James had been best friends ever since they met on the first day of their first year at Hogwarts and though he sometimes would not like to admit it, Sirius knew James better then he knew himself. He had, of course guessed James's obsession with Lily Evans in the second year when he noticed James's seeming inability to speak in full sentences, his tendency to blow whatever he was working on to smithereens or his habit of slopping whatever he was eating down the front of his robes whenever she was around. He sympathised endlessly with James and like the loyal friend he was he sat and listened to the endless 'does she like me? Doesn't she?' debates and re played meetings, and the despairing 'she hates me' depressions that were a common occurrence for James Potter over the last six years that he had known Lily Evans.
Sirius understood, even if James didn't that the reason he got so upset with the fact Lily openly rejected him in every way was that James had never been rejected by anyone or indeed anything in his life.
Ever since the beginning of his school life James had been loved by all, pupils and teachers alike, there was nothing that he was not good at; he even had the brains to match his extreme good looks. Sirius had even once heard Dumbledore saying that he and James were possibly the most talented pupils Hogwarts had ever seen. And yet, to James's dismay Lily Evans, the one thing he wanted most in the entire world, and who he thought should be the person who should admire him most for all his abilities and talents, despised him.
Lily, in Sirius's eyes, for James was – And he hated to say it -completely unattainable as long as James remained so arrogant. Granted, he and James both had a lot to be grateful and boastful about, but, as their friend Remus Lupin often reminded them, this didn't mean they had to do so at every available minute. A lesson, Sirius thought with a smirk, that they both still needed to learn.
Lily Evans was, without a shadow of a doubt the most beautiful girl in their year. But what made her so beautiful was the fact that everybody seemed to know this but her. She was slim and pretty with a tiny waist and delicate features, she had long wavy red hair and striking almond shaped eyes that were almost too sparkling to look directly at. She also had a lively and fiery personality and to top it all off was extremely clever. Like James had been chosen as Head boy she had recently been chosen as Head Girl also, but, unlike James she was actually good at her job and never used her authority to her own advantage such as bribing the first years that have been caught snogging in the dark corners of the corridoors. James saw her as a goddess and still in this, his sixth year at Hogwarts could not resist showing off in front of her and ultimately making a complete prat of himself.
James gave Lily a quick glance as though to make sure she hadn't heard him talking about her and was secretly relieved to find her eyes unfocusedly staring resolutely at the ceiling.
He looked back to Sirius and shrugged his shoulders and attempted a nonchalant smile. Sirius gave a short bark of laugher and clapped James hard between the shoulder blades.
"Just go and talk to her instead of attacking her you fool!" He hissed jovially in his ear pushing James forwards towards Lily, "Girls love that."
James suddenly felt the funny sensation of his insides turning to lead as he walked towards Lily. He approached where she lay on the floor and knelt down at her head. He watched her pretty green almond shaped eyes follow his progress and then come to a stop looking piercingly into his own blue eyes. In spite of himself he felt his face grow hot and he looked away. He heard Lily give a small snort of disgust and felt embarrassed that she could hold so much power over him. He forced himself to look into her eyes as he muttered the counter curse.
Lily felt all her limbs slowly relax from the curse and she sat herself up on the Gryffindor common room floor rubbing her stiff neck. James stood up and offered Lily his hand with a grin to help her stand. She coked her head slightly to the side and arched her eyebrows menacingly at him and he hastily withdrew it in to his robes.
"Err...so...anyway...sorry about that Lil, Just mucking around, you know how it is." He stammered playfully. The withering look that Lily then gave him silenced any further prattle.
She stood up to face him and crossed her arms over her chest, "Oh no" Thought James suddenly, "now I'm really in for it." he hastily took a step backwards from Lily and gave a nervous half smile in her direction. Lily stooped down to the small chestnut coloured coffee table where she had been sitting working previously, before James decided to show off his Jinxes and 'mistakenly' accidentally-on purpose hit her with one for a laugh, and snatched up her wand. She straitened to full height and held it in front of her chest pointed directly at James's throat. She advanced dangerously and smiled a sugary sweet smile dripping with dislike.
"My name is Lily, not Lil" She spat at him "And if you ever come near me again, James Potter, I swear that I will hex you into the next century." She took a long deep breath and a large step forwards towards James, who backed away a little further.
"I will make you wish that you had never been born." She continued menacingly, "And if you ever, EVER pull a little stunt like you just did, let's just say you will not be reproducing any time soon." She took another long steadying breath and a step forward and rested her wand tip gently on the base of James's throat.
James's heart skipped a beat – she may be exceedingly angry and a little insane but, damn! He thought, this was sexy - If a little scary!
Lily swallowed hard and continued; evidently she hadn't finished: "You are an infantile, juvenile, pompous, puffed up arrogant little prat that, quite frankly, should do wizardkind a service by throwing your evil, whining, unappreciative, conceited arse of the top of the tallest astronomy tower as soon as possible." James's face had previously been showing amusement but at this it suddenly registered anger and he quickly opened his mouth to argue, however Sirius jumped in for him
"Come on Lily" he said in a reasoning, wheedling type of voice, spreading his arms wide, imploring to her better nature "He's not that bad – He's alright really, isn't he? Any girl would give their wand arm to be dating him!" He looked from Lily's livid flushed face to James's angry one and shut up.
"Cheers padfoot." James said with a cocky smile
"He's right you know Lily, one of these days you will succumb to my many many manly charms and realise that you were wrong and that I am, in fact one of the best guys around here ,Present company included" He winked at Sirius here who grinned back cheerfully at him.
"And if you don't realise that soon then I'm afraid I may not be willing to wait for you to regain your senses." He mock examined his fingernails here as though he couldn't really care and flashed Sirius a wink and then said,
"Come on Lily, let's kiss and make up shall we? And forget all about this?" He had gone too far here however and Lily could stand no more. She sighed and the angry look faded from her pretty features, she smiled a deceptively beautiful smile and her eyes twinkled at James in a way he had never seen before.
"Fine, I give in" she said sweetly, "Kiss this." And without a moments warning or hesitation she swung her right leg back and with the force of a rogue bull caught in a huge tornado charged it upwards and rammed her foot into his unprotected crotch.
Initially James did not make a sound. He clamped his mouth tightly shut and his face turned a vivid puce colour before he sunk to his knees on the stone floor with a huge thud and a massive wave of high pitched groaning. All the boys in the room either had expressions of pain or severe sympathy on their faces or were in taking their breath sharply as though they could well identify with James's pain, and Sirius, being no help at all of course, looked as though he may explode with laughter at any given minute.
Lily gave a triumphant smirk and watched James sink to his knees on the floor. She bent over him and half whispered to him so that it was audible to those nearest them to hear:
"Just for the record James – I would rather chance a kiss with the whomping willow then kiss you." She turned on her heel and marched out of the common room and towards the staircase to the girl's dormitory, snatching her school bag on her way. As she neared the door she wrenched it open and said quietly, more to herself then to anyone else,
"I can't believe that I almost liked you." she shook her head slowly almost at her own stupidity and walked out the room shutting the door and the laughter of the crowd surrounding James behind her.
An hour or so later the common room was slowly beginning to empty after the evening's excitement. James and his three cronies, Sirius, Remus and a pale, drawn faced malnourished looking boy named Peter sat around mulling things over. Or rather Remus, Sirius and James did, Peter sat with them looking twitchy and staring into the depths of the fire nearest him.
"Never mind prongs." said Sirius brightly "She wasn't so special anyway – plenty more fish in the sea and so forth." He looked at James who was sitting delicately perched awkwardly on the edge of a squashy bottle green sofa chair. When he saw the thunderous look on his face, he shut up quickly.
"Why does she hate me so much, what have I done?" Said James indignantly, shuffling on to the chair some more with a wince of pain and a sharp intake of breath.
"Er, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I'd say she thinks you're a bit of a twat mate, and a bit of a show off really." Said Sirius twirling his wand idly between his long ink stained fingers, "What was it she said? Oh yeah you're an infantile...arrogant...little..." Sirius continued brightly.
"Shut up" Said James quickly cutting Sirius off in mid sentence, "I heard what she called me, ok?" He flumped down on to the chair properly and yelped in pain from, his Lily induced injury and despairingly ran his hand through his messy dark hair.
"Did you also hear what she said before she left you for dead on the floor?" Said Remus lightly to the left of James.
James looked at him and shook his head moodily, slouching back into his arm chair, Remus continued,
"She said she couldn't think why she almost liked you James. Which suggests to me that you were probably winning her over before you pulled your little stunt tonight." Remus pulled himself out of his armchair and stretched lazily, he then said "I am off to bed now; I've got an arithmancy test in the morning. Night all." And with that he left the common room swiftly followed by Sirius and Peter, leaving James all alone with his moody thoughts.
An hour or two later when everybody in his dormitory had long since fallen asleep, James crept into his four poster bed, his blue sapphire eyes red and puffy, he slumped down and lay face down into the duvet without even taking of his clothes. When he finally did fall asleep with his thoughts about how stupid he had been, he had several fitful dreams, and when he awoke all he could think of was Lily.