"Evans! Hey, Evans!"
Oh no, Lily though, not today. Please don't let it be—
James Potter bounded up to her side, slinging a well-muscled arm across her shoulders before she had the chance to dart away. She sighed and looked up, a slight frown crossing her face.
"What do you want, James?" She said, shrugging out from under his arm. As soon as the words fell from her lips, she realized that it wasn't the right thing to ask.
His smile was big enough to compensate for her lack of expression as he confirmed her suspicions. "You know what I want, Lily." He said, something a little desperate slipping into his voice. It was hard to detect at first — like the sound of embers in a fire as they dwindle down to nothing— but impossible to avoid hearing once it had been found. "I want you to go out with me. One date, that's it. C'mon, I'm not that bad, am I?"
She bit down on her bottom lip, contemplating her next move. Is he that bad? What's one date? No. Lily, he's a jerk. He's an arrogant toerag, as you've told him on several occasions. Absolutely not. "I will not go out with you. Absolutely not," she repeated, but with less conviction than she had mustered inside her head.
Of course, he was just going to shrug it off as per usual. Go back up to his friends and have a laugh over the whole thing, maybe plan some pranks or play some Quidditch. Then, the next day, she would find herself in the same situation. Shrugging out from under his arm and telling him it was a lost cause. She was a lost cause. Just as always.
But he didn't shrug and he didn't give her a small and hopeful grin, promising that this wouldn't be the last time he asked her out, he didn't even walk away. James Potter stood there, hands by his sides; frown on his face, looking surprisingly…hurt.
It was like that for a minute, the two of them standing there with this new awkward silence between them. This feels weird, she thought, why does this feel so weird?
"I won't ask you again," James said, sneaking what he might have thought would be his last peek at her vibrant eyes. "If you really don't want to go out with me, I'll drop it." His mouth hung open and his hazel eyes darted from the floor to her face several times, as if he were looking for the words he wanted to say next. Or waiting for her to say something. She didn't.
"Right," he sighed, turning around with somber finality. "I guess that's it then." he said to the empty corridor he now faced. "I'll miss your constant rejections, Evans, but I can't do this anymore."
With each step, the echo of his shoes against the cold floor became quieter, his declaration of surrender more real, and the sound of Lily's heartbeat a thousand times harder and louder than the last.
"Maybe just one," she whispered, but her voice was as quiet at the footsteps that were a hundred feet ahead of her. "Just once!" she said a bit louder, but her voice seemed to be caught in her throat, like a half lucid nightmare when you scream for help and panic as you realize you can't make a sound.
"James!" she finally managed to shout as the barely audible sound of shoe against stone ceased. Squinting, she could see that he had turned around but wasn't walking back. Maybe he had been serious. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe she had gone crazy. "Maybe just one!"