This is how I know

James POV

In the beginning I asked her out on a dare. She turned me down.

So I continued asking her out. I liked to think it was the manliness in me that kept me from allowing her to say no, but now I think it was weakness. I thought no one could turn me down.

That's all it was to me, until I reached 5th year.

That's when I realized I had her memorized.

I knew the way she tensed when I approached.

I knew the way she gestured when she yelled at me, and the way her pony tail swished when she threw me a cutting remark.

I knew the way she tossed her hair indignantly.

I knew the way her lily perfume smelled, and how she loved it, even though Alice gave it to her for a joke present.

I knew she had the strongest pride, which could shatter like glass with a single rock thrown at it, so she guarded it with good grades and a militia of retorts.

I knew the way her hair swished and her eyes lit up when she laughed.

I had memorized the lightning storm in her eyes when I asked her out one to many times in a day.

I knew the pattern of her walk, her shoes slide clicking as she mounted the steps to Trelawney's tower.

I knew the way her shoulders sloped downward on the right when her school bag was too heavy.

I knew when she didn't come back to the common room before 10 at night because she was studying.

I knew her friendship with Severus Snape was cracking and I could see the way it broke her apart, her smiles never quite reaching her eyes and her laughs sounding just so slightly forced.

I knew then I loved her.

After that, it hurt when she said no.

Ever girl I kissed never tasted or acted or smiled just right, because she didn't look like Lily.

I'd tried, I had listened to her and what she accused me of, and I tried to change.

It just hurt all the more when she accused me of the same things over again.

I couldn't bear it when I didn't win a Quiddich game because I knew she was watching, and she wasn't impressed.

I followed her, and I suppose you could call it stalking, but I prefer the term adoration.

I tried to protect her, watching and guarding her from Snape after the faithful day by the Beech tree.

I never stopped thinking about her, even when she yelled at me or ignored me.

Then, 7th year, when I'd found out she was Head Girl, (big surprise) and I was Head Boy, and I realized we would share a common room and we would patrol together, I realized, she didn't need a boyfriend, she needed a good friend. So that's what I became.

I realized she hated it when I asked her out, so I stopped, or at least tried to.

We became friends, though for me, it was never really true because I knew I wouldn't last long as only that.

I hated that she fell for it, and that I knew one day I would crack, and she would be whisked away from me by her own indignant, wounded pride.

So I watched her, and I knew that night when she never came back from the Library.

I went to find her, expecting either she was still studying or that Snape had trapped her somewhere and was hurting her.

I went off to find her, and to my relief I found her in the library, which although it was better than Snape, was a bit worrying in itself.

"Lily, it's 10 PM! You need to sleep, okay?"

"I know, James, but I just have so much to do!"

I pried the book from her hands, taking a considerable amount of work more than I had originally expected.

She looked into my eyes, and her emeralds glistened at me, beautiful but heart wrenching.

Then her head dropped into her hands and she began to sob uncontrollably.

I sat down beside her, pulling her limp, shaking frame into my tall, thick build.

Her tears fall hot and thick and the wetness in her emerald eyes slowly died from a shine to a sparkle.

She smiles, a bit shaky, but still a smile, and pulls me into a hug. I grin down into her hair, and whisper to her that I love her, but thank Merlin she misses it.

I wouldn't want to ruin our friendship after this.

But then she startles me, for she begins to say something in her post-sobbing hiccoughing of a voice.

"James…." I look down into her eyes, sparkling not with tears but with realization. Behind their carefully hidden curtain, though, is a nervousness I'd only seen in those eyes as exams approached, and we were eons away from those now. "James, don't hate me…."

"Lily, I couldn't if I tried."

"I just have to say this… please?"

If it would make her happy, she would have it from me. It's like I'm her puppet.

"I- I love being friends with you… really… I do, but it… it can't go on."

Shock and hurt rile through me, anger flashing in my eyes, as the meaning of those words pour over me like a bucket of ice water.

"W-why?" I stumblingly ask.

"I can't be friends with you… because, well, I guess it's because… I- I…"

"Lily, just say it. Then, I'll go." My tone was harsher than I had hoped it would be.

"I love you, that's why." She whispered it, quietly, reverently. Like a million butterflies, my stomach churns. Her eyes are clouding again; her look becomes one of desperation, hope, and disappointment, all quickly after the last.

I stood to leave, for I had said I would go. She grabbed my hand with her dainty, lady-like one. It fit perfectly. She blushed just slightly.

"Don't, please don't go," she pleaded, eyes brimming with close to crushed love.

The devil part of me wanted to put her though the kind of pain I'd experienced, but somehow I couldn't do that to her. I stayed where I was, allowing her to pull herself gently up using my hand.

"I love you, James," she whispered just before releasing my calloused palm.

I couldn't leave her. I couldn't stay. I was in the shocked kind of meditative, non-responsive state one gets when one can't comprehend what one is hearing. And, as quickly as it had come, the trance passed, and I gave her a slow smile.

Hope reignited in her eyes like an emerald fire. Beautiful, scary, a million emotions were sparked by those eyes.

I realized that I wouldn't ever move from that spot if she didn't, and while it was a bit scary, it was what helped me realize, this is how I knew I loved her.

Something about my manor must have conveyed this to her, because she brought her hand up to my chin, traced my jaw with the slightest brushing of a touch, causing my skin to tingle. She moved her hand to my hair and brought the other to my neck, standing on tiptoe to reach closer to my height.

When her lips bushed mine, I knew we were both gone, so lost in each other we might never again see the stars, as the other shined so bright that the stars were blinded from view. It would be forever, or until the end.