When James Potter had first met Lily Evans, he'd thought that she was beautiful.

She was a little bossy, but still beautiful.

More than six years later, James Potter still thought that Lily Evans was beautiful.

She was still a little bossy.

And very angry.

Who could blame her, really? It wasn't his idea of an ideal situation either, being locked in a broom cupboard with a livid Lily Evans.

Okay, it was, but when he'd imagined being locked in a broom cupboard with Lily Evans, the door had been locked from the inside and Lily hadn't been quite so furious.

She'd obviously been a little furious – even James couldn't delude himself into believing that Lily would willingly enter a broom cupboard with him, even in his own fantasy.

She was rendered speechless, at least, although unfortunately, it had absolutely nothing to do with his snogging skills and everything to do with his idiot of a best mate, Sirius Black.

Watching Lily's pale face become a rather fetching shade of I'm-going-to-kill-you-Potter red, James pondered why Sirius was always the reason he ended up in situations like these.

"Potter! Are you even listening to me?" Lily screeched. She even looked beautiful whilst she yelled at him. How did she manage that?

"Sorry – I was thinking," James said, snapping out of his incredulous admiration.

Even with the little light that was seeping through the cracks around the door, James could see that Lily couldn't quite believe him capable of intelligent thought.

He sighed.

In the past three months that they'd been working together in their capacities as Head Boy and Girl, James had begun to believe that Lily realised that his IQ was higher than that of the average blast-ended skrewt.

Apparently not.

Maybe he should tell her that he was actually an Animagus. Just somehow slip that into casual conversation. That was bound to raise his IQ a little – to that of a garden gnome, at the very least.

"Potter!" Lily screeched again.

"Sorry," James said again.

"As I was saying…" She was enunciating her words in a manner that made him fear for his life. Just a little. "What. The. Devil. Is. Going. On. Here?"

James shrugged. "I really couldn't say."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Rare is the day that you don't have something to say, Potter." The way she crossed her arms across her chest was no less beautiful to him for being so familiar a gesture of her rapidly-decreasing patience. The next step on her spiral down toward total loss of control was foot-tapping.

He briefly wondered if it might be considered creepy that he knew her habits so well.

Probably, but only a little.

James shrugged again. "You'd have to ask Sirius if you want to know what's going on."

Her foot began tapping against the bare stone floor. "You expect me to believe that?" Tap, tap, tap.

"Believe what?" he asked, confused. He was quite certain that his slightly zealous consideration of her beauty hadn't caused him to miss a step in the conversation.

At least, not this time.

"That you're a victim of your best friend's antics as much as I am." James was amazed at her ability to sound exasperated even whilst spitting out the words. Her brilliance truly dazzled him.

He raised his hands in supplication. "Whilst I might not go as far as to call ourselves victims, I definitely agree that I am as innocent as you are in this case."

"And you expect me to believe that?" she asked again. Tap, tap, tap.

"Yes."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You're unbelievable!"

"I think we've established that."

She glared at him.

He grinned at her.

Inside, James sighed again. In one fell swoop, Sirius Black had managed to undo all of James' good work of the past three months. He'd really believed that he'd been making some headway with Lily. She no longer glared at him over Prefect timetables, and she smiled at him during Potions. She sat across from him during dinner in the Great Hall, and she'd even cheered for him at the last Quidditch match.

And then there had been last night.

James couldn't help smiling at the memory. Of just how perfect it had been. The way she'd looked with the frigid November wind whipping through the fiery tendrils of her hair. The way her smile had lit up his entire world. The way her blush had made him feel a little giddy.

"What are you smiling about?" Lily snapped, bringing him back to the present moment.

James leant back against a bucket containing a mop, a broom, and of all things, a window wiper. "Last night," he replied.

He couldn't help smiling at Lily's faint blush, despite the window wiper digging into his lower back. For a fleeting moment, he wondered why the window wiper was tall enough to even reach his lower back, but the thought left as quickly as it had come, swept away by more pressing matters.

Namely, Lily Evans and her faint blush.

"Oh," she said, much quieter and far calmer than anything she'd been since their fateful imprisonment in the Broom Cupboard of Doom.

James couldn't help the way his smile became a little lascivious. Maybe she'd enjoyed last night as much as he had.

Lily glared at him until he was forced to wipe the smile off his face. Or maybe not.

"Don't go getting any ideas!" She said, once again returning to her spitting and snapping. James knew wild dogs that were nicer than Lily Evans when she was angry.

Okay, he only really knew one wild dog, and that was Sirius, and he didn't really count because he was actually quite adorable as a dog.

And plus, he was toilet trained, so he wasn't exactly wild either.

"Are you…?" James began, then tried again, "Did you… have a good time?"

Nothing. She'd turned away from him and was now staring at the door.

"Last night, I mean." As if it wasn't blindingly obvious to when he was referring. Of their previous interactions, there weren't many that would be considered a 'good time' by any stretch of the meaning. He enjoyed patrolling with her, but it wasn't exactly a romantic dinner at Hogsmeade.

Neither was last night, but it was definitely closer than patrols, as exciting as it was to find fifth years canoodling in empty classrooms.

Her shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly. If James wasn't so stalkerish in his study of every minute detail about Lily Evans, he might have missed it.

"Lily?" he asked uncertainly. When all was said and done, he preferred it when she was yelling at him. The silence scared him. Just a little.

"I… No," she said, still facing the door.

"No?" he echoed. Had he severely miscalculated her smiles last night? He'd been so certain that the way her eyes had crinkled, just a little, meant that they were genuine smiles.

Of genuine happiness.

Or at the very least, of genuine… something.

"No. I mean, yes." She shook her head as if to clear it and turned back around to face him, looking a little confused and incredibly breathtaking. Again, James marvelled at her ability to be perfect in any given situation.

"Yes?" He couldn't quite help the slight tinge of hopefulness.

"Yes."

It was James' turn to be silent. Good things came to those who waited, and he'd been waiting for Lily Evans for a very long time – a few seconds more wasn't going to kill him.

Probably.

"I had a good time," she finally said, her voice soft and quiet, like one of those soft-serve ice creams he'd had that one time when he and Sirius had got lost on the way to Remus' house. What had that place been called? Something beginning with M…

"… Last night," Lily added when he didn't immediately react.

James felt his mouth stretch into a broad grin. "That's..." He trailed off. That's what, exactly?

Just what I hoped you would say?

Will you marry me?

Can we name our first son Harry, after that muggle magician?

"… Great," James finished.

"Great," Lily echoed, shifting from foot to foot. This behaviour was new. James didn't know what it quite meant. In any other person, it might have been nervousness. But in Lily Evans? It could mean that her angel wings were about to break through the back of her sweater.

Or maybe that she needed to use the bathroom.

But never nervousness; least of all because of him.

"Oi!" Sirius' dulcet timbre drifted through the wood of the door, drawing James away from his musings about angel wings and girls' bathrooms.

"Black!" Lily once again turned around to face the door, all signs of impending angel wing release – or the dire need for the water closet – disappearing at the sound of his best mate's voice.

Damn. He never had that effect on her.

"Let us out of here at once, or so help me Merlin –"

"And give us back our wands!" James added, still feeling peeved that Sirius was able to attract and hold Lily's attention better than him.

"I'm not opening this door until I here snogging noises!" The glee in Sirius' voice was palpable, even though the ancient hunk of wood in front of them was rather sturdy. They just didn't build doors like they used to in the Dark Ages.

"Sirius –" James began.

"We are not snogging!" Lily finished.

James couldn't help the grin that flashed across his face.

"What?" Lily snapped.

"That's what I was going to say," he replied, still grinning.

Lily looked a little horrified at the idea that they might have had been thinking the same thing.

"Does this mean you two are going to snog now?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly petulant at being so quickly forgotten.

"Not with you standing right outside the door, mate," James replied calmly. "That's kind of creepy, even for you."

There was a moment of silence. "Fair point," he conceded.

And then, for reasons fathomable only to Sirius Black, he opened the door.

James had but half a moment to feel relieved at how easy it had been to get Sirius to open the door before he realised that Lily Evans had almost literally flown out of the cupboard and right on top Sirius.

She'd never done that with him. Why was Sirius so special?

"Get off me, you crazy woman!" Sirius yelped, putting his arms out in front of him to protect his vital organs.

Lily was having none of it. "Where is my wand, Black?" she seethed whilst simultaneously groping through Sirius' pockets and attempting to put him in a headlock.

If James hadn't been so cut up over the fact that Lily Evans, the love of his life, was groping someone other than himself – for whatever reason – he would have found the sight rather funny.

"Prongs! Mate! Help!" Sirius squeaked, slowly backing himself into the wall of the corridor.

James sighed. "Just give Lily her wand and she'll stop," he said.

"Are you nuts?" Sirius asked, managing to sound incredulous despite the life-threatening situation. "She'll kill me!"

James shrugged. "You did lock her in a broom cupboard with me – which, by the way, you didn't need to."

"Aha!" Lily cried in triumph, having finally located her wand. She took a step back and seemed prepared to jinx Sirius from here to next Christmas.

Sirius, seemingly oblivious to the lady with murder on her mind currently levelling a wand at his chest, asked, "What do you mean I didn't need to?"

Lily lowered her wand in surprise. "Wait – why did you lock us in a broom cupboard, Sirius?"

Sirius' expression became a little smug at the question. "So that you would finally snog, of course! It's so obvious that you two like each other – I'm simply hurrying along the courtship."

James ignored the fact that Sirius had just used the word courtship in an everyday conversation. "Mate –"

"Wait – you didn't tell him?" Lily interrupted, directing her question towards James. Her incredulous expression only increased her ethereal beauty, which James hadn't thought possible.

"Tell me what?" Sirius asked, his hands still raised in front of him in defence.

"I thought you two told each other everything," Lily said.

"We do," James replied.

"We do?" Sirius asked, folding his arms across his chest, doing a pretty good imitation of a jilted boyfriend.

"We do," James reiterated. "I just hadn't worked out how to tell you yet."

"Tell me what?" Sirius' eyes narrowed. James had the strangest feeling – like he was in some parody of a bad break-up plot from a romance novel (they were Peter's copies, not his – he'd just been especially bored that day).

"We went on a date," Lily said, not bothering to beat around the bush.

Sirius turned to James for confirmation.

"Last night," James added, feeling a little ashamed for not telling his friends. He'd just been a little paranoid about them in all likelihood dropping by to 'check in on things'. He'd already been so nervous last night – he didn't need the added worry of wondering what sort of dastardly prank his mates might be planning.

"And we snogged," Lily added.

Both James and Sirius looked at Lily in surprise. They had snogged, but he hadn't expected her to just say it – and to Sirius, of all people.

"And it was very nice," she finished.

It was as if a bludger had knocked the wind out of James.

Never in a million years had he expected her to say that – and again, to Sirius of all people.

And with that, Lily turned around and walked down the corridor, away from a flabbergasted Sirius Black and a gaping James Potter.

Sirius was the first to recover.

He turned toward James, his best friend in the entire universe, put a hand on his shoulder, and said with as much solemnity as he could muster, "Finally."

And as Sirius followed Lily's path away from the broom cupboard, James allowed himself to think, to believe…

… Finally.

Just a little.