"Oi! What are you doing to my friend?"
James Potter and Sirius Black stayed rooted to the spot, twisting their heads around to acknowledge the change of scenery. Eleven-year-old Lily Evans stormed in front of their outstretched arms, red hair streaming out behind her, bright green eyes glaring alternately at each of their faces. "Put your wands down! What's he ever done to you?"
James wrinkled his nose, confused.
"Get out of the way, Evans!"
"Drop your wands!"
"Merlin." James sighed, lowering his wand arm and rolling his eyes. "Girls."
"Girls ruin everything." Sirius agreed, frowning. "He cursed us first! Snape, stop hiding behind Evans like a coward!"
Severus Snape, who had kept quiet until now, scrambled out from behind his best friend, his own wand pointed. Lily didn't seem to notice.
"Oi! If we have to put our wands down, so does h-"
"Petrificus Totalus." Snape said urgently. The curse glanced off James' arm. The boy stiffened for a moment, before blinking and shaking his arm, a grin splitting his face.
"Hah, Snape, that was crap!"
"Sev." Lily hissed over her shoulder. "You're not helping."
"I'm fine."
"You're clearly not! No." She directed the last word at Sirius, who had just aimed at Severus over Lily's head. She whipped out her own wand, but it was too late - the red jinx hit Snape square in the chest, and a split second later, Severus was dancing uncontrollably, sprawling onto the grass of the Hogwarts grounds in a complete and utter mess, limbs flailing as he desperately tried to claw his way up into a standing position. The small crowd that had gathered around the first-years began to ripple with laughter, before turning into outright guffawing as Snape continued to embarrass himself; Lily was starting to burn with mortification and rage, and in all of two seconds she had aimed her wand at the two laughing boys before her and send such a strong hex in their direction that her arm jerked backwards from the force of it. Laughing turned to gasps as the spell took effect; hair sprouted from every inch of the boys' adorable faces, covering every dimple, sprouting between the lines of James' glasses and the scars on Sirius' left arm from previous escapades.
The Spring of Lily's first year marked her very first detention.

"Really, Potter? This again?"
"You're looking as sexy as ever, Evans."
"Fuck you."
"Gladly."
"Let him go or I'll hex your nose off. I mean it."
There was a delicate pause as James contemplated her words; Sirius, who was leaning against a tree nearby with his wand held loosely by his side in case James needed support, smirked and shook his head slightly. Lily didn't pay attention to him. She never did.
If Severus could have spoken, his wrath would have increased tenfold. James Potter had not been the only boy to notice Lily's steadily changing figure, the chest that was starting to take shape, the shorter skirts and the way her hips swayed when she walked - he was, however, the only boy who wasn't deterred in the slightest by Severus' secretly thrown curses. The head Marauder had somehow grown some sort of passion for 'Lovely Lily', as Slughorn the perv (Lily always denied it, but Severus was sure that when Lily graduated, Slughorn would leer at her and deem her free game) had nicknamed her, and it was damn difficult to stamp out. The arrogant little bastard had so far declared his love for her whilst standing on the Gryffindor table at dinnertime, or wrote her messages in sparks from his wand on the Quidditch pitch; Severus twitched with rage. And now, here she was, defending him, and Potter still had that smug smile plastered all over his brattish face. Did he not understand that he'd never come close to being Lily's best friend? Could he not contemplate the fact that Severus and Lily were far closer than he could ever hope to be? That she was his?
Another few sentences of banter was flung between them as Severus desperately tried to escape the Silencing Charm that James had put on him, his wand too far away to reach.
James said something, and Lily flushed scarlet. It was too much for Severus; this called for desperate measures. He dived for his wand, turning James' attention away from Lily and back to him - there was a crack as one curse was aimed at Snape, then another almost immediately afterwards as Lily flung a curse at James. He flew backwards but landed on his feet - luck, but he'd call it skill - and suddenly Sirius had joined the fray, Summoning Severus' wand just as his fingers were about to close around it.
Lily twisted to face Sirius, anger etched into every feature of her pale face.
"I swear to Merlin, Black, if you don't give Sev his wand back this second-"
"Alright, alright!" Sirius seemed wary of Lily's wand, having had several unpleasant encounters with it before. "I just didn't want him to start cursing us, alright?" He chucked the wand towards Severus, who snatched it up hungrily. He was just envisaging several scenarios of James in searing pain before meeting Lily's hard glare, telling him that he wasn't allowed to do anything either. No matter. He had Lily, and that was all that mattered.
The Summer of Severus' fourth year marked his sixteenth detention.

James had been expecting it. Oh, how he had been expecting it.
It was remarkable that Snape hadn't found him earlier. He'd been going out with Lily for what - two weeks? He'd been looking out for that greasy head of hair since day one. And now here he was, a wall against his back and his wand lying useless four feet away, waiting for Snape to cast the final curse that would surely blow his brains out, or at least leave him mentally disabled; Snape would probably go to Azkaban, but seeing the rage burning in those black eyes in front of him, there was clearly no limit to what Snape would do. The veins on Snape's sickly white hands stuck out unhealthily from his skin like ropes, the hands themselves shaking as he pointed his wand into the space between James' eyes.
"I hate you." was all he said, keeping the wand held in the air. Why hadn't he already cast the curse?
"I know."
"Don't talk!"
Silence.
"I hate you. So fucking much."
James said nothing, hazel staring into the black. If this was going to be his last sane moment, he wanted it to be defiant. Proud. A few strands of inky black hair fell into his eyes, but he didn't dare brush it from his forehead.
"You couldn't be happy, could you? Couldn't be happy with fucking Quidditch Captain, fucking Head Boy, having the fucking world at your fucking feet. You had to have her as well, didn't you?"
James couldn't help but break his forced silence.
"She's not something to be had. She never loved you."
"SHUT. UP!" With an anguished roar that James had thought only existed in dramatic Muggle movies, Snape leaned backwards, his brain forming the words for dark magic to smash into James Potter's face -
"Severus." It was soft, gentle, echoing from the stone walls of the dungeon. It was the only thing in the universe that could have halted Snape's attack, and it worked - his arms dropped like stones, and James exhaled the breath he hadn't known he'd be holding, using the cool wall pressing against his back. So close. So close.
Eighteen-year-old Lily Evans stood in the dim light of the dungeon, almost a silhouette, were it not for the dark red hair that billowed around her face, providing colour against the bleak black and grey of stone. James could see almost touch the tension between the two - the years of anguish, the years of a friendship that had been doomed from the beginning. His eyes flickered to his wand - it was much too far away to risk Snape blowing off a curse.
"You." Snape said, his voice cracking. "How could you?"
"We all knew it was always going to happen."
"No! No! He... he..."
Lily's wand had already been pointing at Severus, and it didn't falter as she replied smoothly.
"You don't want to hurt him."
"How the fuck would you know? You don't know me!"
The pity in the green of Lily's eyes transformed into steel.
"You're right." She said, her voice low, dangerous. "I don't know you. I haven't known you since we were eleven years old."
"You-"
"You called me a Mudblood, Severus." Her voice was slowly building up to a shriek, yet the wand was still aimed solidly at Snape's face. "You called me a Mudblood in front of everyone there! You think people didn't warn me about you? Do you know how many times I defended you? How many times I told people that they were wrong? Well, they weren't. I was. ... I was always fucking wrong about you, Severus. I should have dropped you the minute you got chummy with Mulciber and all those other twats who are gagging to murder me."

She laughed at Snape's wince, a cruel laugh. "Don't act pained. You knew all along! You knew all along that they'd kill me in the blink of an eye, if they had half the chance! I couldn't even meet your eye for a whole fucking year after what happened at the Lake, and now you have the nerve to get edgy with me because I'm living my life?"

James shifted his arm into a more favourable position. Severus didn't notice.

"I fancy James Potter. To be honest, I always fancied him. Most of the reason why I was so hostile to him was because of you - I wanted to keep you, Severus. I wanted to keep you so badly. But you made it impossible. Truly."
This was news to both of the boys. James felt his jaw drop slightly at this revelation, but he couldn't let his surprise show. Lily was on the verge of tears, and under no circumstances could he let her break down. Snape's wand was pointed at the floor...
Pre-Head-Boy-James kicked in, and he threw himself towards Snape's legs. He heard a strangled cry as his target was pulled down to the floor with him, and for a moment they scuffled. At some point, Severus punched James full on the mouth with the coldest of fists. His upper lip split and blood trickled into his mouth as he grabbed Snape's wand hand, twisting his wrist and wrenching the wand away so that it clattered onto the floor - he grunted and pushed Snape down, finally overcoming the weaker boy's strength and pinning him down to the cold stone floor, his face mere centimetres above Snape's.
"You won't get me again." He promised, blood dripping onto the floor. Lily's hands tightened around his arm, trying fruitlessly to pry the lion off the snake, her voice lost before his mind could process it. "I swear it, Snape. I don't want to hurt you, but you leave me no choice." He finally succumbed to Lily's protests and let her drag him upwards. He expected a kick or a punch as he steadied himself, but Snape didn't move. He simply breathed, staring up at the floor as if he were a corpse, not even bothering to grab for the wand that had rolled into the shadows of the dungeon.
"I'm sorry." said James. It was the last thing he ever said to Severus Snape.
James Potter received only one detention in his seventh year.