I posted this a while back on harrypotterfanfiction, and I don't think I'll be continuing anytime soon. I hope you enjoy it, though!

"Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be. As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy. Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don't be late."

– Come As You Are, by Nirvana

The library seemed stuck in time when I settled in the small alcove near the restricted section. There was nobody studying, as it was the end of the school year and all exams were over, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop from the opposite side of the room, and the clock was out of my sight, so time seemed non-existent.

I pulled over one of the chairs from one of the desks in the library and positioned it in the alcove overlooking the bustling Transfiguration Courtyard. My best friend Alice Quinn sat down there with her boyfriend Frank and all of his Ravenclaw friends, and my other friend, Marlene McKinnon, left school early because of her uncle's suspicious and sudden death. The last person in our quartet of friends, Sarika Kapoor, was fighting off a mild bout of Dragon Flu in the Hospital Wing, which made her very irritable since it caused her to miss the final quidditch game of the season. This left me all alone, so I wanted to go somewhere quiet to think. That's why I was there.

There had been so much to think about lately: the attacks on muggleborns, stressing on how I did on my finals, and HIM.

The "him" I am referring to is none other than James Potter.

In the past six years, I thought I hated him, but last week something changed all that. He had always seemed so over-confident and cocky, always showing off to impress me or cause mayhem around the castle.

The event that occurred was last Wednesday while I walked the halls early one morning to check out a book in the library before hoards of students cramming before their finals filled the tables.

I was walking down one of the many corridors leading to the library, book bag slung lazily over my shoulder. There were a million thoughts swirling through my head, many of them about my friends, the finals, or trying to remember which guy Willow liked this week.

All of a sudden, the startling sound of running footsteps penetrated my numb yet chaotic state of mediation. Assorted screams could be heard as the footsteps neared, honestly frightening me as there had been many reports of Death Eater attacks on Muggleborns in surrounding areas.

As a reflexive defense, I hopped into one of the smaller hallways that broke off of the main hallway, hoping to not get in the way of whatever was running my way, even if it was perfectly harmless. Hey, better safe than sorry.

The footsteps and yelling grew nearer and nearer, and I began to recognize the voices.

"Run faster, Snape! We're losing him!" bellowed the thunderous voice of Odysseus Mulciber to his running mate, nearly out of breath chasing whoever it was that they were.

"It's not my fault that he is one of the fastest in our school!" Severus replied snidely. "Maybe you should run faster too, or blame Avery instead of me!"

Right on cue, Thaddeus Avery ran up behind his two cohorts, obviously not as in shape as them. His nearly black eyes always had given me the creeps, and I knew he was the one that broke Severus's and my friendship apart. Not that that mattered to me anymore.

I peeked my head out to see which student they were terrorizing today, and expecting to see a small but speedy first year, I was in for a shock when a huge mass of black robes and tanned skin flew on to me, pushing me back into the smaller corridor.

"Stay quiet!" my captor whispered sharply as a door opened and I was brought inside. I debated whether to follow his commands or not, but quickly decided that it would be better than facing Avery, Mulicber and Snape if I did.

The world went black for a few moments after the storage closet door was slammed shut, my head hitting an unknown object, presumably wooden, and my feet barely touching the ground. After only a couple of seconds, a light was turned on and my eyes could see my surroundings again, this time revealing my captor.

In front of me stood none other than James Potter, looking intently out the slits of the vent on the door, one hand holding the door shut just above my shoulder and consequentially trapping me between his body and the door.

"Potter! What the hell are you doing?" I whispered furiously as I pushed him away, utterly startled by the whole situation. Mixed emotions popped up in my head, one of them thankful that it was not Severus, Avery, or Mulciber, but also irritated that it was James Potter. Why, oh why, I thought, couldn't it be that attractive seventh year from the library?

Another voice in my head told me that Potter wasn't that bad looking either, but blocking that thought from my mind, I put my hands on my hips and looked up at him, my eyes intent on burning a hole through his skull.

At this point, Potter looked down at his hostage for what was apparently the first time, and was shocked to see me glaring up at him.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Lily!" he apologized, jumping away from me, throwing up his hands as if he were confessing innocent to something.

Irritated, I didn't respond to his seemingly sincere apology, but rather turned around to open the door of the storage room. I placed my hand on the knob, grasping it tightly as part of my anger, and attempted to turn it. When it wouldn't budge, I cursed under my breath in a very unladylike way and jiggled the handle, struggling to pull it open with all my might. Reaching for my wand to unlock the door, I remembered leaving it on my nightstand for me to retrieve after breakfast. After a few seconds and a few more curses later, I turned around with my hands on my hips.

"See what you did, Potter?" I fumed as I felt my cheeks grow red with anger. "Now we're locked in here! You better get your wand out and unlock this door before my opportunity to go to the library passes, or else I seriously might just kill you!"

"Hey! Calm down! Why do I need to do it?" James asked in a much softer tone than me. "Don't you have your wand on you?"

I shook my head and responded to him as irritated as possible. "No, that's why I asked you. Now can you just open this door so I can be on my way?"

I looked up at him to give him a murderous look, and found him looking at me with a look that looked honestly scared to death. I felt accomplished to know that I could instill a little bit of fear in some people. It made me feel like a bad girl, which I most definitely
wasn't. I felt accomplished, that is, before I realized it wasn't my facial expressions that inflicted fear into his eyes, but rather the situation.

Now I really was fuming. "Potter, you have your wand, don't you?"

He shook his head sheepishly, looking down at me with a face that is usually reserved for seeing a purple dog with wings dance across the street. His hazel eyes were wide with fear, and despite my anger, I couldn't deny that they were actually quite attractive. Not that I would say that aloud or anything.

I looked away, since it was now obvious that he had in fact left his wand behind. In a rather childlike way, I crossed my arms yet again and looked away from him, knowing that it might be hours until we would be let out of this closet since it was quite a ways down a dark and narrow hallway that only house elves and the caretaker visited.

For the next twenty minutes or so, I sat on the stool with my feet on the uppermost rungs as Potter attempted to pick the lock, but made no progress.

Feeling exceptionally pessimistic, I spoke to him "It's locked with a spell. No use trying to pick at it."

He looked at me, and responded in a tone equally as pessimistic as me. "Well, do you have any better ideas?"

I leaned back against the desk, letting myself relax and take in my moment of slight authority. "Sooner or later a couple will come along to find a place to snog, and this is prime territory as you probably know. We'll just have to wait until then."

Potter raised his eyebrows and grinned his lopsided grin. "And how would you know about this being prime snogging territory, Miss Evans? It sounds as if you've had experiences in here before!"
I chuckled, actually slightly amused that he would think that, but still rather perturbed that he would assume that. "Yes, I have been here before. On patrol as a prefect! Every night one of us would have to come here to rid the closet of couples. It's basically part of the job description… Patrol the halls, help the younger students, kick couples out of the supply closet…"

"Oh, so you of this place's history not because of personal experiences here, but rather by patrol..."

"Yes, Potter I just said that. Good job paying attention."

"Sheesh. Well, Miss Evans, if you want, I can show you what you've
been missing out on in this closet..."

"SHUT UP POTTER!"

"Sorry..."

We sat in awkward silence for the next half hour before I made an attempt to break the silence. It had been too long for me to go without saying something, and I decided that making a petty conversation with him would be better than reading the labels of potion ingredients in silence.

"So..." I began, my voice soft but jarringly loud compared to the minutes of silence. He looked up from the novel I had let him borrow from my bookbag, stunned that I was actually making an effort to start a conversation. "Er, what are you doing this summer?"

"Um, well... I just spend my summer at my home with my parents and sister. And Sirius. He will be staying with us too." He started, closing the book and looking at me straight in the eyes.

I shifted my position, strategically avoiding his eye contact. "Oh. I didn't know you have a sister."

"Yeah. She's pretty groovy. Her name is Helen, and she graduated from Hogwarts the year before we started." He responded, continuing our awkward conversation.

"That's nice. I have an older sister too, but she's a pain in my ass." I said, letting my frustration show. It felt foreign on my lips to speak about my sister, since I rarely spoke about her even to my closest friends, let alone one of the Marauders.

Potter looked at me, showing genuine interest in what I was saying. He wrinkled up in eyebrows in intense thought, then said, "It's Petunia, isn't it?"

I looked at him again, my eyes wide. "Wh-what?"

I was quite shocked he knew my sister's name. I scanned my mind for any time that I might have mentioned her name in conversation, and none came up in my mind that he was around. That left me with one explanation of how he knew my sister's name. Stalker.

He looked at me, wrinkling up his eyebrows again in thought. If he wasn't a stalker, it would almost be kind of cute. Almost. "That's her name, isn't it?"

Still in shock and in an awkward state of not knowing how to respond, I merely nodded my head. "Yeah. Petunia. She's two years older than me."

Potter nodded his head as well, obviously wanting me to elaborate. "So, why is she a pain in the ass?"

I laughed, thinking of all the reasons in my head. "Well, for starters, she used to be fairly tolerable, until fourth year when my father passed away. She blamed me for his death because I didn't stop him from dying. She thought I could somehow use magic to stop him from dying, but magic won't stop muggle cancer. I think she was jealous of me being a witch when we were younger, so she called me a freak for it when she didn't understand.

"Now, she is getting married this summer to a complete idiot who resembles a well-fed hog with a moustache. Instead of meeting me at the platform when I come home for summer holidays, she decided to schedule a wedding dress fitting with her friends. Out of all of the days she could have picked before her wedding, she decided to pick that evening so she wouldn't have to deal with me. Also, she's so caught up in the wedding plans, I'm not sure if she is getting married because she loves Vernon, but rather because she just want to have a wedding."

Potter listened to every word I said, sharing sympathetic looks with me. "I'm sorry. About everything. I think Sirius has the most dysfunctional family of all time, but you and Petunia can get honorable mentions as most dysfunctional siblings."

I laughed, trying not to burst out any exceptionally loud snorts like I was known to do. I realized that I had revealed more about my home life to James Potter than to anyone else. Petunia was a rarely-spoken-about topic in my circle of friends, and when she was mentioned, it was only in passing or a petty conversation. Now I was opening up my feelings to James Potter, a guy who I had never had a civil conversation with before. The most surprising thing about the whole situation though, was that I didn't care that I was opening up to him.

He smiled, and I smiled back.