A/N: New one-shot! It's Lily/James, obviously, and hopefully you'll like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Harry Potter...
"She said yes, she said yes, she said yes, she said YES!"
Sirius groaned. "Moony, could you shut him up, please?"
James stopped his victory dance long enough to glare at Sirius for a second (though he failed in doing that, because he couldn't stop grinning) and say, "I thought you would be happy for me!"
"Prongs, mate, of course I'm happy for you," Sirius told him. "When she said yes. Which was over a week ago. And you're still dancing and chanting every second of every day."
"I do not," James protested weakly. "And I'm just expressing my happiness. I wasn't aware that that was forbidden."
"You do, Prongs," Remus cut it. "And no, it's not forbidden, it just gets boring and annoying after about… five minutes."
James crossed his arms with a huff. They didn't understand. They would never understand how he felt right now.
~~~~
He was bubbling with excitement, and he made sure everyone knew it. Everyone being his best friends.
"James!" Remus called out, his voice muffled by his pillow, "we get that you're happy about your date with Lily today, but could you please let us sleep?"
James just pretended not to hear him and kept on running through the dorm, looking for his socks, his shoes, his comb, and many other things that he seemed to have misplaced at some point. He wasn't even fazed when Sirius chucked one of his schoolbooks his way. Humming happily, he left the dorm, and promptly found himself facing a big dilemma.
When did the date even start? Was he supposed to wait for Lily here, so they could have breakfast together, should he meet her in the Great Hall, also for breakfast, or did she just want to go to Hogsmeade with him and did the date only start after breakfast in the Entrance Hall?
Ruffling his hair (a nervous habit), he just stood there for a moment. Suddenly, he heard a voice from behind him. "Who are you trying to impress now, P – James?"
He whirled around and grinned as he saw Lily standing there, a slight smirk gracing her face. "Lily!" he exclaimed, beaming at her. "I was, uh – " How to tell the girl of your dreams that you were having a nervous breakdown about when and where your date was supposed to begin?
Sensing his nervousness (where did that come from? James thought frantically), Lily just said, "Well, let's go to breakfast then." With that, she walked out of the common room, and James followed closely, grinning again by now.
"So," he asked as they made their way to the Great Hall, "do you have anything in mind that you want to do today?"
Lily thought for a moment. "Not particularly, no. Do you?"
Oh, James could think of some activities for the day, but he didn't know whether Lily would like his ideas very much. Deciding that it would be better to just see how it'd go, he shook his head. "No, me neither."
Still over the moon that Lily was talking to him willingly and politely, and that she had even agreed to go on a date with him, James couldn't help but grin the whole way down. When they arrived at breakfast, Lily took a seat opposite James and studied him for a moment. "Are you alright?" she asked. "You've done nothing but grinning for the past fifteen minutes…"
"I'm just happy," James replied. It was true, he was happy. Almost too happy to form coherent sentences.
Smiling slightly, but seeming a little disturbed as well, Lily turned to her food. Digging in too, James kept one admiring eye on her, and the other (less admiring) one on his food. He wouldn't want to make a fool out of himself in front of Lily (because he had never done that before).
Once they finished breakfast, they decided to just get up and go to Hogsmeade; most students were still in their beds or were just filling up the Hall, so it shouldn't be too crowded in the town now.
"P – James, what's wrong?" Lily asked when they walked outside. James looked at her for a moment, wondering what she was talking about, before he realised that he just skipped down the steps that led to (or, in their situation, from) the front door.
"I'm happy?" James offered again. It was still true, he just wasn't so sure that Lily would keep believing him.
"Why?" she informed, as they started walking towards Hogsmeade.
"Why shouldn't I be happy?" James retorted. "You're going to Hogsmeade with me, it's like a dream come true." Oops. Perhaps she didn't want to know that. This might just freak her out completely. Glancing at Lily, James was relieved to find that she just looked a little flustered. "So how's life for you?" he asked, hoping that there wouldn't be an awkward silence coming up soon.
"It's alright," Lily answered. "You know, it's pretty busy since it's NEWT year and what with our responsibilities as Heads…" she slowly trailed off and then smiled apologetically. "But I bet you know all of that yourself. Sorry if I'm boring you."
"No!" James almost shouted. "You're not boring me. You could never bore me, just ask the boys. So just – talk if you want to talk."
"Okay then," Lily said. "If you're sure…" Well, James thought as she started telling him a story she had read in the Daily Prophet yesterday, thank Merlin that there's no awkward silence now…
Once they arrived in Hogsmeade, it became clear that, regardless what she had said earlier, Lily did know exactly where she wanted to go. Honeydukes was the first stop; not because Lily was in such a desperate need of sugar, but, as she put it, it would be much too crowded later.
"You know," James commented, looking around in the shop, "this is probably the first time I actually see the shop, instead of just running through it and grabbing everything I can get."
Rolling her eyes, Lily still giggled slightly. "Well, then I suggest you take a good look," she told him, "because it might be a while before you can see it like this again."
They took their time in the shop, and when they left, James was carrying large bags of sweets, despite Lily's protests of being able to carry her own stuff. "So, whereto next?" James asked, hoping that she wouldn't want to go to –
"Madam Puddifoot's, maybe?" Suppressing a groan, James nodded obediently and followed Lily (whose turn it was to skip now) to the tea shop. He had never been in there, but Sirius had told him stories about the place. This would not be good. Thank Merlin Lily was still with him; if it wasn't for her, he would never set foot in that place, but he'd do anything for her.
Fortunately, the place wasn't too crowded yet; James had heard that it was suffocating then. Unfortunately, this meant that he could see the horrible pink décor very well. Lily didn't seem to mind though, so James decided to just suck it up.
While they waited to be served, Lily, who seemed rather happy now, continued chattering about all sorts of things. James was grateful for this; at least Lily would keep his mind off of how humiliating he thought this was.
Half an hour later, Lily finally decided that she had tortured James long enough. As they walked through the main street again, she couldn't stop laughing.
"You should've seen your face, it was hilarious!" she managed to say.
"I'm glad you think so," James muttered. He was a little peeved that she thought that his misery was funny, but he was happy as well that he had somehow made her laugh like this. Not too long ago, he had only succeeded in making her angry.
"No really," she told him. "Your face was totally worth it."
"Worth what?" James asked, surprised. He couldn't really follow what she was saying now.
"Worth sitting in there for over half an hour," Lily said, grinning. "I mean, Madam Puddifoot's never sounded very appealing to me, but I thought it would be funny, dragging you there."
James could feel a grin coming up on his face too. "You're joking, right? You mean, you didn't want to go there either?" Lily just grinned and took off towards the Shrieking Shack. Unable to believe that Lily had just played such a trick on him, James followed her, but he couldn't run that fast with all the bags he was carrying.
"Think of it this way," Lily said when James reached her, "now at least I know you weren't just playing around all this time."
"I wouldn't have chased you for two whole years if I wasn't serious," James protested weakly; Lily's way of testing him was, in hindsight, pretty funny.
"You never know," Lily said, shrugging. "So let's sit down here for a bit, alright?" James looked around. They were standing in the field somewhere in between the main road and the Shack. Before he had the chance to answer, Lily was sitting already and she now grabbed his elbow to pull him down too. The small gesture gave James goose bumps all over, but he tried not to let Lily notice.
His concerns turned out to be unnecessary: Lily had grabbed one of the numerous bags he had been holding and she was searching through it at a speed James had never thought possible. She took out a pack of Sugar Quills, tore it open and handed James one before sticking another one in her own mouth. She smiled innocently at him.
"Are you okay?" James asked carefully. He had never seen Lily act like this: she was usually acting thoroughly pissed off whenever he was around.
"I'm just happy," she replied cheekily, and James stuck out his tongue at her, to which she laughed. It was surprising how easy it was for them to act as if they'd been best buddies for their entire lives, while this was actually one of the first times they had a civil conversation.
After that, they both sat in silence for a while, enjoying their Sugar Quills. When she was done, Lily went on a hunt for more sweets (and thus, sugar) and before they knew it, they were rolling with laughter, for unknown reasons.
"Let's go to the Three Broomsticks now!" Lily exclaimed, jumping up. She skipped off, while James, burdened with all the bags (Lily had given up her speeches about the emancipation of women a long time ago), struggled to keep up with her. Yes, he had had more sugar now in half an hour than he usually ate when he and his friends had just visited the kitchens or Honeydukes, but that didn't mean that he could just skip after Lily while carrying countless bags of sweets.
When he finally reached the pub, Lily was waiting outside, looking very excited. "Come on, James!" she urged him. Apparently, he was not fast enough for her standards, because she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the crowded pub.
"It's… full," James commented lamely.
"Oh, don't worry," Lily said happily. "We'll find a spot."
"How?" James asked her. "Did you want to scare away some third years by threatening them with a detention?"
"If I have to, why not?" she replied, and James' jaw dropped. "Oh please," she continued, laughing at him, "as if you lot never do that." She had a point there. Actually, they did that just about every Hogsmeade trip. Scaring little kids away, that was, not threatening them with detention. But the thought of Lily doing the same thing sounded just plain weird to James.
Suddenly, Lily started moving again, catching James off guard. She plopped down in a vacant booth and James fell down next to her. "Hi!" she said, as if it was the first time today that they bumped into each other.
Now feeling the sugar as well, James replied, "Hi!" and both of them grinned at the other like idiots.
"Are you still so happy?" Lily asked, stilling grinning widely.
"Of course I am! Aren't you?"
"Yes! I'm so glad I came here with you today!"
Now James felt like he had a real reason for grinning. "Are you really?" he asked happily.
"Of course!" Lily exclaimed. "It's been great today! We've had so much fun! We should do this again!"
"I would love to do this again," he replied. "Wait, what made you change your mind, by the way?"
Lily just shrugged, a smile still plastered on her face. "I figured that I should give you a chance since you seemed a whole lot nicer after the summer. And, you know, more mature." She giggled. "Although I can't really say that now."
"You're not acting like a mature person either right now," James pointed out, and Lily grinned again.
"Isn't that just lovely?" she asked.
"You're always lovely," James promptly said, and quickly slammed his mouth shut. He was not supposed to say that. But Lily just smiled and looked a titbit redder than she did before. Therefore, James decided to take a chance. "And that's a lovely shade of red you're blushing," he added sneakily, causing Lily to blush even more.
"Oh, stop it," she muttered, but soon, she regained her happy posture and started chattering again about her favourite season, her favourite class, her favourite animals, sweets, colour, everything. And every time, she asked James' opinion and was more than ready to start a discussion about it. It was, without a doubt, the strangest date James had ever been on, but he had never had this much fun either.
Before they knew it, the pub was almost deserted. One glance at his watch told James why; it was very close to dinner time and they were supposed to be back at Hogwarts soon. Since they hadn't had any sugar anymore these past couple of hours, they had calmed down by now (but only slightly).
Still chatting happily, they walked back to the castle, and when they got to the point where their ways parted (since Lily was going to dinner immediately, while James wanted to dump the bags in his dorm first), he asked, "So we'll do this again, right? Will you go out with me some other time?"
Lily nodded, smiling. "Sure, James. I'd love to. It was great today. Thanks for that."
With that, she walked towards the Great Hall, but not without glancing back at James a couple of times. When she had finally disappeared, James made his way upstairs. He couldn't help grinning to himself; after a somewhat bumpy start, today had gone better than he had hoped, or expected. She had even agreed to go out with him again! That thought made him even happier.
For a moment, he had even considered being very straightforward and asking Lily to be his girlfriend, but in the end, he had decided against that. Of course, he had asked her many times, but this was different. There actually was something now, after today, and he didn't want to blow that by rushing her. They would have enough time, after all.
"Prongs!" Sirius shouted as he entered the dorm. "How did it go?"
"It was great," James replied happily.
"And…," Sirius continued, but when James didn't speak up, he added, "did something special happen?"
Knowing exactly what Sirius was on about, James just grinned. "Let's say we now know that neither of us can handle too much sugar very well."
A/N: Well, what do you think? Let me know, please review!