She sat straight in her chair, seeming as stiff as a board. Her red hair was pinned back into something of an elaborate bun, and over the day, curling red tendrils had escaped, framing her pale face. Lily's eyes, green as emeralds, were narrowed.
"What, Potter, do you think you're doing?"
A sly grin graced James's lips. "Evans, Evans, Evans… You shall see soon enough."
Lily crossed her arms impatiently. "Get on with it. I'm in no mood to deal with you. One would have thought that a sixth –almost seventh–year would have a bit more sense than to jump off the North tower on a broomstick! And then, as if that weren't enough, drag me into a storage closet with no reason!"
He chuckled. "Heard about that, did you?" Not waiting for a response, he continued, "Good, I was hoping you would."
She made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a huff.
James pretended not to notice. He went on, "As for inviting you into this lovely closet… Lily, will you go out with me?"
"No… What's next, proposing to me in the middle of a detention?"
"That's not a bad thought, actually…"
"Don't you get any ideas, Potter!"
He laughed again, deep and ringing. "I've got plenty, thanks anyway."
You just contradicted yourself… Lily thought. For someone so clever, he can be quite daft…
"Evans, have you ever ridden a broomstick? For real?"
"Not since lessons first year…"
"Had a firewhiskey?"
"Nope."
"Skipped a class?"
"Never!"
"Pulled a prank?"
"You wish!"
"Snogged someone?"
"No…"
"Broken curfew?"
"No."
"Ever jumped out of a window?"
"Why in Merlin's name would I do that?"
James stopped with the random questions, a satisfied smirk settling his features. "Because Evans, are you not a Gryffindor?"
"Only a fool would do something that reckless!"
"You really have a hard time living up to that red-head reputation, don't you?"
Her features hardened. "I am not a stereo-type."
James pulled his own chair closer to hers, putting his face close to hers, his glasses balanced precariously on the tip of his nose. Somehow, Lily thought, he manages to wear his glasses, his glasses, for Merlin's sake, in a way that made him seem like a daredevil!
"But Evans, aren't you? I've seen that fire in you! It's somewhere in there! It's smoldering, you're trying to compress it, when really it should be a blazing inferno! It could be of whatever you want it to be… So why must you hide it from me?
"I like to play with fire, figuratively speaking. Toss a few leaves into the flames, and watch them burn. Maybe some bigger bait, a twig, a branch. Sometimes they catch, sometimes they don't. Not until much later, anyway, after you position and reposition them. And sometimes, I'll get real close to the fire, put my hands right up to the flames–"
Lily's nose was nearly touching his, and his breath was warm on her cheeks. "But you might get burned," she whispered, taunting him.
"Au contraire mon chéri, I like the thrill. It gives you a feeling like no other, like every moment counts… And burns heal. Once they do, I'll go right back to sticking my fingers back in the fire." James's hazel eyes met Lily's. They shone with a passion.
"What happens when that gets old?" she asked.
"It never does, Lily. It never does," His face was so close to hers, all James wanted to do was feel the definite lines of her jaw, or press his lips up against hers and stroke the hair that was as red as fire itself…
Lily's breath caught in her throat, as reality caught up to her. She hadn't even realized that to her, time had stopped. And she saw that James's little speech was really more of a metaphor…
A pulse of anger ran through her. "Potter, what am I to you? Just another hurdle to leap? Just another challenge that you need to beat? Am I just a game to you?" Her fingers, pale in the lighting, flittered around his cheekbone before pulling back, and slapping him, hard. She stood up, the wispy red tendrils of hair that were framing her face looking like frozen fire.
James didn't recoil from her touch like she thought he would. He just sat there, eyes closed, as five angry red marks bloomed over his face. He didn't make a sound, all except for the steady inhale and exhale of his breaths.
With some sort of sick fascination, Lily watched the bruises on his cheek grow deeper in color. After a moment, she tore her eyes away and spun on her heel, furious. She threw the door open, and stormed through it, slamming it in her wake.
She didn't catch the quiet words uttered in her wake.
"You mean the world to me, Lily… if only you'd see it."
It wasn't three months later when Lily Evans started to appreciate James Potter.
She realized that the proud, bespectacled, ego-maniac had something…worthwhile about him.
She started to admire that he would stand up to her if he disagreed with something she said. Or something she did. Lily remembered how mad she would get at him, how she would scream and shriek until her throat hurt, and hold her wand right up to his throat, and that he never flinched away. That James Potter wouldn't cower or bow down, like his friends sometimes did.
All the sudden, that proud boy became an honorable man; one that never took bull from other people.
Maybe it took a war coming in full swing to make him grow up a little bit. Maybe it took a war coming in full swing for her to realize that James's pranks helped him get away from the deaths and the threats and the world that was coming much too fast for a teenager.
And maybe it took a war for her to learn to love him.
His shaggy, messy black hair that refused to stay neat. The hazel eyes that flickered when he laughed. His slightly crooked tooth from the time he got hit with a Bludger. His lean, muscular build became something of a comfort zone for her. She liked the way that his voice always sounded funny when he was tired. James helped her forget all of her troubles, and face the ones he knew she could.
James made her stronger.
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
-Lao Tzu
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Okay, I had a lot of fun writing this story :p
I love James and Lily, and I kinda wanted to explain how she came to love him.
Also, the reason that Lily slapped James may have been unclear; it was because James said that he liked to play with fire, and Lily took that as that James was only chasing her for the thrill of it, and not because he was actually in love with her.
The quotes, I think, are well suited for James and Lily, respectively.
"Au contraire mon chéri" is French for "on the contrary, my darling"
Anyways, cookies to those who review!