So, I did some experiments writing this… Please let me know what you think of it.
Word count: 2326
i'm not in love with you (i swear)
James Potter asks Lily Evans out for the first time in fourth year. He had been intrigued by her for a while by then – she was, after all, the only girl in Gryffindor House who so openly admitted to her dislike of him – but it took Sirius dating some fifth year Ravenclaw to realize that he might actually be interested in the redhead.
Rather predictably, it is a disaster.
.x.
It's a Monday morning. Everyone is gathered in the Great Hall, having breakfast, when James is struck by inspiration.
(Later, in the dorms, he'll whine to a laughing Sirius that he has no idea what got into him, or why he thought it might be a good idea to ask out perhaps the only girl who truly hates him in all of Hogwarts.
Remus will pat him on the back while Peter'll say he'll probably have better luck next time. They're good friends.
Sirius, once he'll manage to get his laughter under control, will order a magical camera, and tell him t warn them the next time he wants to ask Evans out, so that they can 'gather evidence of James Potter's greatest failures'.
Sirius is a terrible friend – and probably a terrible person too.)
More exactly, James is in the middle of a sentence explaining why their next prank on the Slytherin's Common Room needs to be done by tomorrow night – Remus disagrees, because they have Transfiguration homework to do for that day and because he likes being contradictory, Sirius agrees with the idea but not with the prank [though what reason there is not to like Charming the Room's portraits to wake everyone up every hour, James has no idea. It's brilliant, that's what it is!] and Peter waits for the verdict before he decides anything, as usual – when he sees Lily smile.
Obviously, she's not smiling at him, but what if she was? What if he could make her smile at him? What if…?
He doesn't realize he walked to where she's sitting until he gets there, and then he would have been fine with just staring at her if she hadn't turned around to glare at him.
[Honestly, you'd think he was some kind of creep by that look! Which he clearly isn't. He's a very normal, non-obsessed, funny – and pretty good looking if he dares say so himself – teenage boy, and there's nothing even remotely creepy to his behavior. Not at all.]
"What do you want Potter?"
If he ever lives long enough to have children – let's be honest, with the look Lily's sending his way, he'll be lucky to even finish the year – James will tell them that he said something incredibly witty. And awesome. And then he'll add that the moment was so perfect that Lily Evans couldn't help but fall in love with him.
The truth is really different though.
What really happens is this:
James blurts out an awkward yet over confident "Will you go out with me, Evans?", because while he might call her Lily in his head, he knows better than to try to do it out loud, and receives a full glass of pumpkin juice in the face for his trouble.
Evans' glass of pumpkin juice, to be perfectly exact.
"In case you didn't get it, that means 'no', Potter," she bites out.
He has never seen someone look so threatening with just an empty glass in hand - it's kind of hot.
He gapes.
"The pitcher is still full too, if you're still thirsty," adds Lily's friend, and the two girls share a not so discreet high five.
"That means 'you'd better leave now if you know what's good for you'," Lily concludes.
He's still dripping when he sits back in front of his plate, where Sirius, unhelpful friend that he is, offers him some 'refreshment'.
"No thank you, I think I've had enough," James replies through clenched teeth.
Remus seems to decide his friend has suffered enough, because he Vanishes the cold mess dripping down James' back with a wave of his wand in the next seconds.
"Thank you, Remus. You are a true friend." Not like these two idiots, he doesn't add as he stares down at Sirius and Peter, who appear to be doing some kind of reenactment of the previous events with Lily, but he likes to think that his glaring conveys his message well enough.
Remus definitely isn't preening when he answers back. "Anything for a friend, James, really. You know I could never bear to see you in such a sorry state. What would Miss Evans think?"
And okay, while he might definitely be glad that his friend feels confident enough in their friendship these days to tease them as much as they tease him, the sarcasm is not welcome. At all.
"I hate you all. You're terrible friends, and I don't know why I keep talking to you."
But even as he says this, he can't quite keep the smile out of his face.
.x.
He wakes Sirius that night, once he's sure everyone else is asleep.
"Sirius, I think I'm in love."
"That's great dude, go back to sleep now, it's too early."
"No Sirius, I'm serious."
"No you're not."
"Yes I a- I see what you did there… No, I think I'm in love with Evans."
"Well, I'm pretty sure the feeling's not mutual, so you might want to work on that Prongs. Now go back to sleep so I can too."
"That… is a great idea!"
"Come on James, that's not what I meant – you know what, never mind. I just want to sleep. You do what you want."
.x.
It becomes some kind of ritual after that. James asks Lily out, she says no in some kind of rather (unnecessarily) violent manner, James backs out – and then tries again the next week. It becomes a kind of constant in their universe.
He sends her weekly letters asking her to reconsider her stance during the holidays – she burns them gleefully and carefully pens out a no, before sending him back the ashes with her answer.
James figures out that it means she must care at least a little, and goes for more and more outlandish plots to get her to agree to 'just a date, you'll see I'm sure you'll love it'.
It never works, but Lily always has to hide a somewhat fond smile as she refuses.
That too, is a constant in their universe.
Until it isn't.
.x.
"You know, you could just tell him that you actually like him," Remus tells Lily one day, because of the four Marauders, Remus is the clever one and he sees right through her where James is blinded by whatever it is that blinds him when Lily is concerned.
"I could," Lily admits, "but I find that I rather enjoy his strange attempts at asking me out again."
"You mean you've gotten used to them."
"Maybe, yes." She smirks at Remus' disbelieving look. "What? You can't say he's not original at least, and I really think he enjoys it as much as I do."
Remus couldn't fault her there. James' mood had been positively radiant since Lily had agreed to that first date, and he seemed to take every 'obstacle' as a challenge of his 'love for the most precious flowers of all'. [Yes, James got weirdly poetic when he plotted the best ways to ask Lily out.]
Still… "Couldn't you just put him out of his misery and tell him you won't say 'no' if he doesn't spell out your names with fireworks tomorrow night? We," he gestures discreetly with his head at Sirius and Peter, who appear to be engaged in a riveting game of chess, "are getting tired of waking up in the middle of the night because James wants to know if his latest idea is good enough."
"Fireworks, really?"
"Yes, really," Remus sighs exasperatedly. "We tried to tell him that it was too much, but he wouldn't listen."
"I know I should probably be a responsible prefect and put a stop to that, but you've made me curious about those fireworks… I'll probably still have to say no though, you know how it is… Irresponsibility is a big turn off for me, as you well know, and the fireworks are the epitome of that." This i a blatant lie – Lily loves fireworks.
"Didn't you tell me earlier that you loved fireworks?"
"Well, of course I do. Who doesn't? Besides, it sounds like Potter is putting a lot of thought and effort in this. I'd hate to ruin his moment." She smiles, her eyes wide and innocent in an expression that Remus would have believed if he hadn't spent the last five years living in close quarters with the redhead.
"You," he says, "are evil. James has no idea what he's getting into."
"Thank you," she replies smugly. "I try my best."
Yes, definitely evil, Remus thinks as she returns to her books. Poor James…
Five minutes later, James drags him off to the Forbidden Forest to find an 'essential ingredient' for the fireworks he's trying to create.
On second thought, he muses as they end up running from a horde of pissed off centaurs, they completely deserve each other.
.x.
Lily's first words when she agrees to go on a date with James are: "This doesn't means I'm agreeing to go on a date with you. I'm just saying that I'll consider spending some time with you during our next Hogsmeade weekend. Alone. Somewhere romantic. That's all."
She's fooling herself and they both know it, but neither mentions it. They don't mention the truly embarrassing stuff, and they don't really talk about their feelings – it's become a silent rule between them over the years.
(James may or may not do a victory dance after that, and Lily may or may not find it very cute.)
A month later, they've been on five official dates, have christened what feels like half the broom cupboards at Hogwarts but probably is only like a tenth of them, and the entire school knows they're officially dating.
Two months later, she gets the Marauders to agree that pranks should be played school wide and not be focused on a person or a House.
No one sees it coming and no one ever suspects anything.
Sirius is delighted that his best friend's girl turns out to have a 'fun side', Peter is terrified and Remus is torn between being glad Lily is on their side and despair that he no longer has any hope of ever ruling his friends in (not that he ever really had any chance, but still, he had hope until then).
James is just kind of turned on.
.x.
Here's the thing though: Lily figures out she wants to marry James and spend the rest of her life with him exactly four months before he does.
She knows this because he, one, told her so when she asked him, and two, only got a ring four months after she started dropping subtle clues about it.
She knows better than to let James plan anything by then though, so she waits until he gets back and ask him to marry her right by the broken sink in their kitchen.
It's probably the least romantic proposition ever, and she knows James well enough to know that he won't be able to resist trying some kind of grand gesture later on, but for now it's perfect.
For them; it's perfect.
.x.
At their wedding, Lily's vows start with 'I'm absolutely not in love with James'.
James cracks up so badly they have to pause the ceremony for half an hour, and Sirius takes some great photos of James bent over himself and trying to get a hold of his breathing with Lily egging him on.
Somebody even gets a particularly telling picture of Sirius that somehow conveys perfectly his 'my best friend and his wife-to-be are both crazy idiots but I love them anyway' face, with picture-Remus behind him looking like he wishes for nothing more than a wall against which he could hit his head.
James' vows start with 'I know you have a lot more practice saying 'no' and other variations of that word to me, but you're going to have to resist just this once'.
Sirius' speech starts with 'I think that by now everyone knows that James is an idiot, but he's a brave idiot – after all, you'd have to be pretty brave to spend years chasing after Lily Evans when she repeatedly shoots you down. And after years of adventures – I won't bore you with the details since most of you actually were there for those adventures – he finally got the girl.
'Or well, she got him. Who knows with those two? But here's one thing I know: he loves her and she loves him, and that's the only thing that should matter to anyone.'
It's a long speech, and in true Sirius fashion it derails spectacularly after a while, going off on tangents of tangents until the only thing people know is that the speech is supposed to be about James and Lily's love for each other, even if the best man ends up talking about the best way to get the Hogwarts' caretaker drunk.
Lily and James spend the whole day laughing, and that's really all they wanted for this day.
.x.
When James tries to carry her over their porch that night, Lily casts a spell so that only she can open the front door. She knows he probably suspects something, but he humors her and sticks to non-magical attempts at getting the door open.
Obviously, he fails. It's hilarious, and the perfect ending for a perfect day.
(in the end, they sleep outside under the stars, and it feels like the entire universe is laughing with them)