LILY

Lily sat staring at the Common Room fire, grumbling and throwing spare pieces of parchment into it, her sparkling white dress robes in disarray around her. She glowered as she reminisced over the last three hours.

~*(Earlier)*~

It was the Halloween dance, the last one probable, Professor Dumbledore had said. After the dinner, Professor Dippet had announced that he was retiring from deputy Headmaster at Christmas and would at that time be handing his authority to Professor McGonagall. Everyone had cheered for McGonagall, but many seemed upset at Professor Dippet's leaving, as he had been an excellent headmaster and had thrown Dance Parties whenever he felt that the school was becoming too routine and monotonous. Once his speech had ended, what Lily had been dreading most approached, the compulsory dance between Head Boy and Girl, she grudgingly took James' offered hand and stood to dance. That dance had ended quickly, but almost every other dance, James had asked Lily to dance again, and she was obliged to accept. It was one of Dippets' rules that Lily hated (all dances offered to head girl by head boy must accepted), but it was against Lily's own rules, to break rules, and this was no exception.

During these tedious affairs, James had yabbered on while Lily wished she were being eaten by a dragon, or bitten by doxies or anywhere else but here!

At one point about two hours into the event, James had said something that had particularly annoyed her,(something about 'Snivellus', why were the Marauders always so relentlessly horrible to Snape, for no apparent reason?) and she had felt like yelling at him, but rather than making a scene she did something that seemed far more effective. She stopped dancing, stopped moving at all, stood on her toes and whispered in his ear,

"You are an obnoxious prick and I hate you, Potter." Before storming back to Gryffindor tower, where she had been ever since.

~*(Present)*~

"Ooh—that James Potter." Lily felt herself blush, she didn't hate him…not really, she was trying to cover up from her friends that over the last year she had acquired a soft spot for him, also he was just—just…arrogant and annoying and…just the most adorable boy around…

"Eww." She scolded herself when she looked at the piece of parchment she was holding. Without knowing it, she had picked up a piece of charcoal from the hearth and drawn a rough but wonderful sketch of James—bringing out his mischievous smile and his perfectly messy hair. She reluctantly threw this into the fire as well, thinking

I am NOT going to become another girl who is infatuated with James Potter

Trouble was, she already was.

JAMES

"What am I doing wrong?" James ran his hand through his hair, making it even messier than it already was. He was frustrated, he still couldn't seem to win Lily Evans over. Everything he did was wrong to her. Even if he was insulting 'Snivellus' because he had called her a mudblood, it still wasn't good enough for her.

"I dunno Prongs, mate, maybe you should give up." Sirius was laughing at his friends' dilemma.

"Like hell, Padfoot. If you ever suggest that again, you will seriously wish that you could stay as a dog for the rest of your life 'cause something you really like will be missing." He glared at his best friend, roared with laughter at the look on his face, and turned to observe the game of chess between Moony and Wormtail, at which Wormtail was failing miserably.

"That's a done game, Wormtail." He commented and scanned the room for Lily. He wanted to apologise for whatever it was he had done wrong last night at the dance, though he wasn't looking forward to the If-You-Don't-Know-Then-I'm-Not-Going-To-Tell-You Speech from her. But she wasn't up yet and he started to remember the night before.

~*(Last Night*)~

James stared along the table, cheering when everyone else was, just so he wouldn't seem as though he was away with the fairies…well, not completely away with the fairies. That shimmer of red hair was just too distracting, his attention was drawn to it every second. Suddenly James noticed he was supposed to ask Lily for the Head-Boy-and-Girl dance. He had stood up and almost tripped on his robes in his hurry to ask her. He whacked Sirius around the head as he heard a snicker, and carried on down the table. When he stood in front of her he had cleared his throat and stuck his hand out, concentrating with all his energy on not blushing, then he noticed the reluctant way she had taken his hand, his stomach plummeted in disappointment. He asked her for dance after dance, trying to leave spaces so he wouldn't seem obsessed. Although that didn't work too well, as after the first ten dances, Lily had rolled her eyes at her friends and they all giggled helplessly. He had kept talking, trying to start a conversation, but she had had a glazed look during every dance. Until he had started to talk about 'Snivellus', then she started to pay attention, she seemed on sharp alert.

"So, anyway, I yelled at him, that he was a despicable excuse for wizard if he couldn't even accept that half his family were squibs and muggle-borns, or what he would call 'mudbloods', and he better start realizing that that was why he had no friends in his house, 'cause he was a despicable mudblood himself and that—"

at which point she had ripped her hands out of his and whispered that he was a prick and she hated him. Then stormed out of the great hall, her robes had shimmered in the candlelight and he stood wondering what he had done wrong this time.

~*(Present)*~

"Lily! Wait! Lily! Hey! I just want to—" but the Portrait had closed behind her,

"Shut up, Just don't say anything" he said, directing it said to the other marauders.

"Didn't say anything."

"Nor me."

"Not a peep" they grinned at him and he had half the mind to jinx them all.

James fell into the nearest chair and took parchment, ink and a quill from the side table and set about writing an apology letter to Lily,

Dear Lily,

I'm sorry for whatever it is I did last night. To make it up, would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?

James

He asked one of the girls to leave the note on Lily's pillow, and joined in with the chat about Quidditch with the others.

LILY

Lily gaped open mouthed at the piece of parchment in front of her,

whatever it is I did? That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen written down! He's just admitted that he doesn't have a CLUE!

she laughed out loud and her friends looked up at her sharply.

"What?" her best friend Tonia asked her.

"Look at this! James Potter just confirmed that his part of the male population is thick!" When she had read the slip of parchment she handed it to the next person and tried hard not to grin.

"It's not funny really. You should feel sorry for him, and you should also always be nice to people with special needs like his!" that was when her composure broke and she curled over and hysterics took over.

Harriet, who was at the mirror removing her multitude of makeup turned around and rolled her eyes at them,

"God, Lily, it is SO obvious that you like him! Just stop trying to fool yourself and everyone else." Then she turned around to continue her nightly facial preparations, Lily pulled a rude gesture at her in the mirror, but Harriet did see it as she was too focused on her 'wrinkles' and the 'bags' under her eyes, which were in invisible to everyone else.

"I do not like James Potter, I—" she looked at Tonia for support, blushing.

"Uh-huh, and that's why you're blushing Lily." She snatched the parchment back.

"Thanks a lot!"

"You're very welcome"

"So, what do I write back?"

"You write, Yes, thank-you James I'd love to go to Hogsmeade with you, meet me at 9 o'clock in the common room, Lily."

JAMES

"YES!" James punched the air, yelling loudly, and waking Sirius, Remus, Peter and the one other boy in the dormitory.

"Wha'?" Sirius looked out through the curtains, his hair messy and his eyes bleary, "Prongs, it's 8 o'clock in the morning and a Sunday, why the hell are you awake?"

"Look what just turned up on my desk." He thrust the piece of paper at him and Sirius blinked a few times before being able to read it.

"Good for you, Prongs, now let me go back to sleep." He shut the four poster's curtains and a minute later they could hear him snoring.

James was on edge the whole week, getting lower grades than usual and daydreaming a lot.

"James…James?—James!"

"What?" he suddenly noticed that he was being spoken to, and looked up into some worried/annoyed/intense green eyes.

"Are you okay?" Lily asked

"Yeah. yeah, why?" he tried to sound casual

"Nothing, look, I'm going to have to postpone our Hogsmead…erm…date, only for an hour or two, so if you want to meet in The Three Broomsticks then that's good for me."

"Err, right, what time?"

"Well, probably 10:30"

"That's alright, just gives me more chance to eat more at breakfast"

"Fine! Oh, and just so you know, this 'date' it not a truce, this is just a chance for you to prove yourself as not completely obnoxious." She smiled sweetly and walked back over to her friends.

"Prongs, I think that was an insult"

"Moony, I'm not thick."

"You are this week." Sirius and Peter laughed.

LILY

Lily woke to find Tonia sitting on the corner of her bed sorting through her box of makeup.

"Toni, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Lily, you've got to be joking. You've got a date with James Potter, and I am not letting yourself go out there looking…normal!"

"What wrong with normal?" Lily looked at her watch, "Besides, I can't, I need to—"

"Don't worry 'bout that, I got our Prefect to do it."

"But I told James that—"

"Don't worry 'bout that either. We're going to use the time to get you ready, we have to pick out robes, makeup and accessories, oooooh, this green scarf matches your eyes perfectly."

"What are you doing in my trunk?!"

***

"Toni, that's too much makeup."

"HELL NO, it's not"

"No…Toni!"

"Just a little bit."

"NO, I am not going to wear any more eyeliner, I'll look like a goth!"

"What are you worried about, I thought you didn't like Potter anyway."

Lily glared at her best friend. Also blushing at the same time.

"That's enough. Besides, I'll be late, it's 10:25"

"Hang on then, just this…" she threw the green scarf over Lily's shoulder.

"What's this for?"

"Well, it's cold, and it's a good colour too."

"Fine, Got to go, bye, mummy." Lily smirked, and Tonia threw a cushion and the closed door.

JAMES

James sat playing chess with himself, he had charmed the opposing pieces to move on their own, because he had spent so much time daydreaming about Lily that he was getting close to being beaten even by Peter.

Lily, he looked up towards the girls staircase just in time to see her coming down, wow. His mouth was hanging open as he stared at her, he'd never seen her wearing any makeup other than natural colours.

"Errr, wow, Lily."

"Shut up, this is all Tonias fault, you can blame her."

"Why?"

"Cause I look horrible, and this makeup is way too thick, don't try and say it isn't" and she had such a fierce look on her face that he didn't say what he was thinking.

"Right, so, you coming?" He held his hand out to her but she just looked at it,

"I'm capable of walking to Hogsmeade myself, Prongs."

"How'd you—"

"The whole house knows you idiot, 'part from Dumbledore, but he doesn't count cause he's a teacher."

'You mean you know…everything?"

"Yes, You're a stag, Peter's a rat, and Sirius is a dog. We haven't figure out Moony though." James sighed in relief.

"That doesn't matter, we better go now."