"AHHHHHHHHHHHH"
You awake with a start and nearly have a coronary in the process. Flinging the sheets off your new bed you jump up and sprint across the hallway, wrenching open the door with the offending noise behind it, expecting to find a mangled body covered in blood, instead you find a sweating and very pretty girl, tangled in her sheets and looking at you furious shock.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" She yells, aghast.
"You screamed" you pant, slumping against the door frame and catching your breath now that you know that it was not a murder happening along the hall, just a pretty red head who had had a nightmare.
"I did not!" She says, as if appalled at the very notion.
"You did!" You cry in disbelief at the fact that she is trying to deny what had just happened not a minute ago.
"Get out, whoever you are" she snaps, still glaring at him.
"It's Potter" you grumble.
"Good for you, now. Get. Out. Of. My. Room." She says darkly.
And shaking your head at the mysteries of girls you turn and shut the door, vowing to discover what the pretty girls deal is the minute it's not the crack of dawn.
Of course the boy is in her first class.
Of course they are partnered up together.
Of bloody course.
" Hey" he says, smiling broadly when he recognises her "I know you"
"No you don't" you say quickly, and then immediately wonder why your first instinct around this boy is to disagree.
"Why do you always go against everything I say?" He questions and oh the irony.
"I don't" she lies.
"He smiles even bigger, "You just did" he informs her.
"No I didn't" she snaps and then oh my god why can't she just shut her mouth she is literally just proving his point.
He smiles even wider and it's a wonder the grin can even fit on his face,
"Who are you?"
"Lily Evans, and you're the boy who barged into my room this morning" you say, without thinking.
"So you do know me"
God damn it.
"Swap you?" Asks a familiar voice and he looks up to see her standing over him, holding out her Orange.
"Hey Evans" you grin and she rolls her eyes.
"Potter do you want to swap or not"
"Well I don't know" you say, in faux wonderment "I'm not sure my Apple could ever bare to part with me"
She rolls her eyes and snaps,
"Potter I'm really doing the orange a favour, I'm not sure anyone could ever stand to be around you for very long."
Sirius, next to you, laughs and Remus shakes his head, Peter is still fixed on his tomato sandwich doesn't notice a thing. Then, before you can do anything she has grabbed your apple from your tray and has taken a huge bite. Spinning on her heel she walks off, red hair following like her own personal fire.
"Go out with me, Evans?" You call after her retreating figure.
Something dazzling is flying towards you and before you can really see what it is the Orange has landed with a loud splat on your lunch tray, splattering you in bright chunks of amber colour that drips down your nose.
"In your dreams Potter."
"Professor" calls a voice from the back of the room and your insides sink with dread.
"Yes Potter" says Professor McGonagall from the front of the class, staring at the handsome black haired boy in the back row with wary eyes.
"Professor, the Pythagorus theory is all very interesting, but can it answer to why Evans refuses to go out with me"
Your cheeks burn and you see red that has nothing to do with your hair in front of your eyes.
"Maybe it's because your an intolerable ass, Potter!" You yell before you think.
"Ohhhhhhhh" echoes the class as they all stare from an amused Potter to a furious you.
"Detention Mr Potter and Miss Evans, try control yourself in my classroom" interrupts the Professor sternly from the front of the class, "Now the theory applies when..."
You curse James Potter into the pits of hell and then wonder if you're already there.
You see her reading in the library and you immediately sit down at her table.
"Go away Potter" she says, without looking up.
"Evans, why won't you go out with me?" You ask the question that haunts you at night, chasing itself around and around in your head and making you want to scream.
"Because I hate you" she retorts, face red, still determinately staring down at her book.
"Why?" You try again.
"Because Potter all you do is ask me out when I clearly just want you to die!" She shouts and leaps up from her chair, storming from the room with all eyes on her back.
He lets the words pierce him, knowing that they are true.
"So pretty..." The voice purrs near your ear and you fight the urge to scream, knowing that it will only encourage him.
All you wanted was a quiet walk on the grounds and now you are frozen as Rodulfos Leststrange's hands dance around your shoulder blades, his ice fingers getting lower and lower his voice like hypothermia on your earlobe.
"Don't scream" he whispers and you shudder as his voice drips down your spine.
"Now Lestrange, what would your girlfriend say?"
A voice calls a voice from behind you and you turn around, knowing who it will be before you even lay your eyes on him. But when you see him, standing a few feet away, long and lanky and gorgeous as ever you feel relief pound through your veins and mix with your very blood. Because he is here. And as flawed as James Potter may be he is not going to let anyone touch you and not a soul hurt you as long as he is right there and you wonder how it is possible to feel this relieved by the sight of a person you are meant to despise.
He sees her struggling with an insanely large pile of books as she walks the corridors on the way to her next class, noticing her concentrated expression and the way she bites her lip when she's focusing.
Almost in slow motion you see the book fall and before you even know what you're doing you are next to her and you have it in your hand and she is staring down at you with wide eyes.
You straighten up and place the book back on top of the pile so softly that breathing on it might have more affect.
"I- I don't need your help Potter" she stutters, grappling with the book pile and staring at you with an expression you can't quite name.
"I know you don't" you smile, slightly "You never want anything from me, Evans"
And with that you turn, walking a few paces down the hallway before-
"Wait! Potter!"
You turn around and stare at the girl who looks like someone has poured paint over her head.
"I need some help" she says, quietly, so quietly you can hardly hear, but you know this girl with emerald glass eyes so you stride forward and take half the pile from her, walking in the direction she was going in previously without a word.
You try to take no notice of her eyes that follow you like green hummingbirds down the corridor, while also ignoring the fluttering in your stomach their watch produces.
Watching James Potter is rather like watching an enthralling movie, you realise, once you start watching it, you can't seem to stop.
He is always moving. Ruffling his hair with his impossibly long fingers, moving his eyes like their is always something interesting happening all around the room, wrinkling his nose with disgust whenever his friends say something gross, twitching his mouth at even the slightest hint of a joke.
Smiling.
Smiling seemed to be his second language, always pulling a grin from his back pocket and throwing it around like a boomerang.
Whenever James Potter smiled. The whole world seemed to smile.
And you wonder how that can even be.
You pass by her room on the way back to your own and nearly have a heart attack when you realise the door is wide open in the middle of the night.
Doubling back you stare through her entry way and see her, legs all over the place, sheets on the floor, arms high over her head, hair seeping from her head like blood.
You stand for a few minutes and you are surprised to find yourself bored.
Watching her sleep was boring.
But how could Lily Evans, he wondered, be in any way shape or form, boring?
You ponder this for a minute and then it hits you.
Watching Lily Evans sleep is boring because you have seen her awake.
Lily Evans awake was like listening to your favourite song because she laughed and she cheered and she answered back and she sneered and she called out in class and she wrote her name in a scribbled font on the top of her page and she threw Oranges at people and used sarcasm like whip and defended her friends and she yelled in libraries and gave the middle finger and did everything with the sense that she didn't know what she was doing but trusted herself to figure it out in the end.
You could not watch Lily Evans sleep because watching her sleep was nothing like watching her alive.
You see the smoke before you see him but of course, when you do see him, you wonder how you didn't know it before.
You stride over and snatch the cigarette from his hand.
He turns toward you and doesn't even look surprised to see you, which for some reason infuriates you because, why is it that this boy knows every move you make before you do and yet you cannot for the life of you understand anything he does or ever will do?
"Smoking will kill you" you snap and you throw the cigarette to the ground, stomping on it with your foot. Then you turn around, striding back toward the roof top door when a voice calls out to you,
"I thought that's what you wanted"
You stop dead in your tracks and you can feel your heart beat in you stomach so loud you can't breathe and you feel his words fill up your lungs and clog up your throat and you whisper your response into the still twilight air and watch it swirl between you like the smoke in his now ashen cigarette.
"Maybe I've changed my mind."
She is lying on the ground in the pure snow, her hair staining the white a brilliant red as it curls around itself in a effort to escape from her head.
"You're skipping class" you say in amusement as you stare down at her.
"It's the first time it snowed all year," she breathes "One must skip class for that"
"Indeed one must" you smile as you lay down beside her, breathing in the smell of the cold.
"I always liked snow" she whispers as the snowflakes fall around them, becoming tangled in your unruly inky black hair.
"And why is that" you murmur back.
"Because it can be the most beautiful thing in the world, and make everything seem a little more magical, or the most awful and make you want to cry your eyes out" she whispers and her words wash over you and catch in your throat like the snowflakes in your hair.
"That's a good answer" you murmur back, "But riddle me this Evans, are beautiful and terrible really that different? Things can be beautiful and terrible." You finish as you turn you head toward her and watch her face.
She is silent for a moment, and then her voice rings out through the silent snowfall,
"Yes Potter, I suppose you're right."
"Evans, I have a joke for you"
You stop in the middle of the hallway and turn, watching the smile on his face light up the room better than any lightbulb.
"Yes, Potter" you say, trying to hide the faint grin on your own face.
"Why did the man eat his pillow" he looks like he's about to burst with his own humour and Remus Lupin rolls his eyes and continues walking down the corridor alone.
"Why did the man eat his pillow, Potter?"
"Because he wanted to!" The answer seems to burst from his lips like soap from wet hands and he laughs loudly, and you stare, surrounded by the brilliance of James Potter's happiness in its purest form.
You laugh before you can stop yourself, sucking in his happiness through your open mouth and feeling its warmth right down to your toes.
He breaks off and looks at you in something like wonder.
"Evans, you laughed" he says in amazement, as if your laughter is the most marvellous thing he has ever imagined.
You stop abruptly and look at his face,
"Yes I did, Potter"
Then you turn on your heel and stride off down the corridor, his exuberant face on the back of your eyelids the whole way.
You find her (of course) where you least expected which is so typically Lily because of course the girl you least expected would be in place you least expected to find her.
You stare at the blob of red slumped in the grandstand and your heart stops pounding at the sight of her whole and fine and beautiful.
"Evans, Evans" you shake her shoulder gently and she jumps awake, staring wildly around with the air of someone who doesn't know where she is or how she got there.
"Why am I in the grand stands?" She says, sleepily as she flops back against her chair.
"Wouldn't I like to know, I've been looking for you for the past hour. You didn't show up for our study session"
"Her eyes widen and she looks appalled withe herself, "Oh my God Potter I'm so sorry! I totally forgot!"
"It's alright" you assure her, turning your head toward the large, pitch black, stadium, "I was just worried something had happened to you. Why are you out here anyway, Evans it's the middle of the ni-"
You are cut off at the sight of her sleeping form, once again hunched in the small chair, head lying on her shoulder.
You carry her up to her dorm.
He leaps up from his chair and storms from the classroom taking everyone by surprise.
You leap from your chair and run after him into the rain, shouting at his blurry and fast walking frame,
"Potter, where are you going!"
"Go back to class , Evans"
"No Potter, not until you tell me where-"
You are cut off by bolt of lightning and the sight of him turning towards you.
"What do you want from me, Evans?" He yells over the wind, "You hate me, as we've previously established! Why do you care if I leave class?!"
"I don't hate you!" You scream at him because God, this boy is infuriating and he manages to make you do things without thinking like he is trying to force you into surprising him when you know that won't ever happen because he knows you better than anyone has ever known anyone and for some fucking obscure reason he still cares.
"Evans, all you do is yell at me and tell me I'm terrible!" He roars and the wind howls in agreement, the rain swirling around so hard and fast you forget that there is even a world outside its thunder.
"Yes but Potter, can things not be terrible and beautiful?! That's what you told me didn't you, Potter?!"
"Are you saying that I'm beautiful, Evans?" He yells, as the stadium lights blow out.
"Yes!" You cry into the oblivion, "Yes Potter, I am!"
And then he is beside you, and he is kissing you like fireworks and of course things can be beautiful and terrible and of course he is right about that because he is James Potter, and he is not right about everything, but her is right when it comes to you.
And isn't that all you ever asked for?