James Potter was an idiot.
He had fancied Lily Evans for two years, two years of various fantasies in which she declared her undying love for him, of being unable to drag his eyes from her in lessons, of feeling his face burn and his heart race and his hands shake whenever she was around.
She was extremely popular, being nice as well as unbelievably pretty, and so by fifth-year she had dozens boys falling at her feet. James had hated each and every one of those squits who had begged for her attention, and vowed that he would never be like that - Lily clearly didn't like all the attention. So he played it cool. He called her by her surname only. He tried so very hard to show her that he was confident, he was cool, he had power and respect.
He'd thought it was working. He'd seen her mouth twitch when he made jokes, caught her eye once or twice when he was gazing at her. He'd been wrong. Utterly wrong.
Why had he gone and blown it like that? Of course, deep down he'd known that messing with Snape wasn't the right thing to do, but it gave him something to do and everybody else found it funny. People like Snape needed to be taught a lesson - James knew exactly which path he was headed down. Voldemort. Jinxing someone was nothing compared to killing someone.
But ...
Lily had appeared. Angry. Cold. But was she just pretending? James hadn't known - he didn't really know anything when she was around. She muddled his head up. He didn't have any filter on what came out of his mouth. He'd barely heard what she'd said. All he'd known was that all of a sudden, his carefully constructed plans of how to ask her out had gone up in smoke and he'd just blurted it out. How stupid. And she'd said ... she'd said ...
She thought he was arrogant, she thought he was a bully, she said he made her sick. How had he got it so completely wrong? Did she really prefer Snape to him? Snape, who had called her a - that awful word?
She hadn't been at dinner, and neither had Snape. Feeling sick himself, James had retreated to his dormitory, where Sirius had attempted to cheer him up and, when that had failed, mumbled a few sympathetic words and disappeared.
Nothing could raise his spirits now. Lily Evans hated him.
He lay on his bed, a horrible aching in the pit of his stomach. Why on Earth had he thought that acting like such a prat would have got her to like him? He saw it, now, in sharp relief: saw what he'd been like. Strutting through the corridors, raising his wand - jinx, hex, detention, jinx, hex, detention. Admirers, popularity, but at what cost?
He replayed every conversation he'd had with her in his head and felt even sicker. His face burned with humiliation. No wonder she despised him.
He hadn't always been like this, had he? Before Lily Evans had got into his head, he and Sirius had just played the fool, only jinxing people when they were provoked (apart from Snape, who thoroughly deserved it). They'd turned into monsters. Look at what they'd done to Remus! He had never even expected to get into Hogwarts, let alone be selected as a prefect, and they'd made him completely abuse his power, always letting them off. He could have the position taken away from him for that, and it was all James's fault.
And while he'd been acting like the world's biggest prat, people were being killed.
He'd never felt like this before - this sudden huge sense of responsibility. Here he was, sixteen years old, in the midst of a war, acting like a complete arse just to get the attention of a girl. He was better than that, wasn't he?
He thought of his father, who had been an Auror. He had risked his life to save other people. That was the sort of man James wanted to be, and yet he was only just realising it now. He had the talent, he knew he did, and yet he was wasting it. He was using it to be a pain in people's lives, instead of saving them. His mind drifted to the Muggle-borns in the school ... in his year. How soon before they were killed? The moment they left Hogwarts? A girl in the year above had been slaughtered with her family over the summer.
Lily was Muggle-born.
Today, she had insulted a budding Death Eater. She'd been targeted by his friends in the past. Now she and Snape were no longer, it seemed, friendly, she'd be even more of a target.
He could save her.
It was like a Bludger had rammed into his chest. The realisation that he did actually care that much about her, that he really, really didn't want her to die, that it would kill him, made his head spin. He hadn't known! He'd thought he just fancied her! But she'd got into his heart, and now, even though she hated him, he knew he would do anything for her. Crikey. This was big. He would not, and could not, let Lily Evans go.
James Potter was an idiot, but he was an idiot with a plan, and this time, surely, he wouldn't fail.
Woah, don't know where this came from, and it's a bit messy and shapeless and bleugh, but as I've said before, I really like James and I personally, judging by his reaction to her turning him down, don't think that he asked Lily out countless times before in Snape's Worst Memory. And we know he changed after that, so I just wanted to show his motivation. Hope I pulled it off ...
Not directly quoted, but based around pages 570-572 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (UK).