Flying up to her dormitory, one Lily Evans stormed in and collapsed on her bed face first, burying her head in a pillow such that her voice was muffled.
"How was Hogsmeade?" Asked Marlene dubiously, referring to Lily's first date with James.
"Horrible," came the muffled reply.
"What did he do to you?" The girl asked, equal parts amused and concerned.
"Nothing," proclaimed the redhead, miffed.
"Then?" Marlene prodded.
"How about I start from the beginning?" Lily suggested, coming up for air, glad to get a chance to talk this out.
L/J
"Lily! Lily wait!" Called fellow Head James Potter, prankster extraordinaire, marauder and all round part time stag.
Running down the hall, he caught up to Lily. This year, their relationship has been less... explosive, to day the least. Bespectacled, messy haired 'arrogant toerag' James had matured, and green eyed, red haired 'bloody uptight' Lily had loosened up. These little changes had done wonders for their relationship, and it was not uncommon, come seventh year, to see them have a civil conversation that didn't involve curses (of both magical and verbal variety), raised voices and (on James' part) terrible attempts at flirtation.
This was not to say that James did not fancy the girl anymore. Oh no, his infatuation was stronger than ever: he just didn't ask her out every ten seconds now. But now, one last time, he wanted to do it.
"Listen, please just think about it. Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend? On a date?"
Turning her face and grinning a bit, Lily said, "I don't have to think about it, Potter. I know my answer."
Without his usual devil-may-care attitude at rejection, (he had, as I mentioned, grown up), James started walking away, slump in his shoulders, spring in his step gone.
"The answer's yes this time," Lily called out behind him, as unable to contain her smile as he was his.
For she had begun to like him too.
L/J
"This was a mistake. I'm going to go call it off." Declared Lily, getting up from her bed and walking to the door.
"No, he'll be crushed," she muttered, and came right back, only to keep on repeating the exercise with different phrasings of the same proclamation until Marlene, fed up, grabbed her the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Listen. You like him, he likes you. You're going on a date tomorrow. This is what you want. Don't screw it up."
A little bit convinced, she nodded mutely and sat back down.
Little did the duo know that the James too was having a crisis over in the boys' dormitory.
"I don't know what to wear!" He sighed, slumping onto a chair and holding his head in his arms. "I don't know what to do, where go take her... you'd think that asking her out so much would mean that I am at least a little bit bloody prepared!" Agitated now, he began to pace, much to the amusement of Sirius Black.
"It's just a date, you dolt. Don't stress so much."
"But that's the thing! It's not just a date. It's the date. With Lily. Lily Evans. It's my one chance - what it I screw it up?"
Remus Lupin, who had just entered, stopped dead in his tracks. "Did I just hear that right? She said yes?"
Answering for his friend, Sirius stepped in. "Yup, she did. Fat lot of good it did us. Only thing we learned is that she can make Prongs go bonkers when she accepts him and rejects him as well. Who knew?"
Rolling his eyes, Remus turned his attention back to James, questioning why he always ended up being the one fixing everything.
"What's the problem?"
"I don't know what to do - or wear - and I have no clue where to take her! I mean, I know that she is definitely not a Puddifoot type of girl, but that doesn't rule out much! Three Broomsticks? Or is that too casual? Or maybe just a walk around the town?" On the verge of banging his head against the wall, he looked to Remus for answers.
"Okay," sighed the werewolf, sitting on his bed and pushing Sirius's legs off it, "It really doesn't matter what you wear, she's not going to see it under your cloak anyway. For the love of Merlin, do not take her to Puddifoot's, if I know her then that's the end of your short lived relationship. Just show up on time, ask her what she wants to do and improvise."
"The last time we asked this idiot to improvise we were trying not to get caught bewitching the suits of armour. He panicked, changed into Prongs and charged into Flitwick; there was a long search for deer in the castle after that." chimed in Sirius.
"That's what that was about? Okay, don't improvise on the spot then... keep a bunch of options open and pick one once you get a feel of what she would like." Ever the voice of reason, Remus suggested.
"You're not helping in any way whatsoever." Groaned James, who went to his trunk and started to rifle through it.
"After a few minutes of frantic digging, he emerged, holding up two nearly identical Muggle shirts. "Which one?"
L/J
"How do you think this is going to go?" Marlene whispered to Sirius as the two of them stood in the back of the Entrance Hall, watching Lily and James awkwardly greet each other, blush and stutter like a pair of twelve year olds.
"At this point, I really don't care. I'm just glad to be rid of him for the day," the black haired wizard scoffed, heading towards the exit and indicating to Marlene to walk with him.
"I'm fed up with Lily too," she said, waving goodbye to the couple as she walked. "She was more indecisive than a weather vane last night."
"James was all over the place. Towards the end he was convinced that the ideal date would be bird-watching in the tropics. Anyway, let's not talk about those two, they do it themselves often enough. How come you're not in Hogsmeade?"
"Frankly, I'm a bit sick of the place. It's not like there's any shopping I need to do as such, and I don't have a date. What about you?"
"Detention with McGonagall later today."
Rolling her eyes and smiling a bit, she said, "Why am I not surprised?"
L/J
"So, what do you want to do?" James asked Lily, so shyly she wondered if he was an imposter.
"You haven't planned anything?"
"No, I didn't have any clue what to do, and now I'm realising that you probably hate that we don't have a plan and I've messed this up already - "
"James, relax, I think it's great. Usually the guy has the whole day planned out, and I wonder if they even think if that's something I would like to do."
Puffing himself up self importantly, James tried to regain his usual charm and suaveness, "Well then, I think we're off to a great start then, don't you?"
Laughing and feeling that the metaphorical ice had been sufficiently broken, the redhead pointed out Honeydukes. "Let's start there. I'm craving sugar-quills."
"I'm more of a chocolate frog kind of guy, but okay."
Perusing through the shelves of the beloved sweet shop, the two Heads wondered how they were so at ease with another, despite their newly formed camaraderie. That was not to say that they were both blind to the supercharged atmosphere that seemed to be there whenever they had the slightest of interactions. Jumping at the smallest of touches, overthinking the simplest of gestures. The events that soon transpired, therefore, shouldn't have surprised the two of them so much.
The rest of the date, although she never said so, James noticed that Lily grew... closed off, to say the least. Topics of conversation never got too deep of too personal, and she, at least to the Quidditch player's point of view, seemed opposed to any kind of physical interaction.
As the day wore on and they felt a bit tired, they decided to wrap the evening up with a drink at the Three Broomsticks. They sat in a small booth, tucked away at the back (the very same one, in fact, that Harry, Ron and Hermione would sit at the first time Harry visited the village at Christmas), and were simply talking when James reached out to hold Lily's hand. Instinctively, she jerked it back, but saw James's face and realised her mistake. Lightly taking his hand in her own, she glossed over the incident, carrying on with the conversation as if nothing had happened.
A little later on, though, was when real disaster struck. The setting sun casting a rosy glow over their table, the Marauder realised that they would soon have to get back to the castle. He leaned in, and just before their lips were about to meet, Lily Evans gave a rather loud exclamation of "Oh!" And, jumping back with a start, she knocked a bottle of butterbeer into James, which spilled over his jacket. Leaping to his feet, he all but yelled, "Oh Merlin!"
"I'm sorry! It can be taken care if with a simple scourgify, I'll do it, here - "
"I don't care about the jacket, Evans!" James slipped back to her last name. "It's obvious you never wanted to come on this date, you've been jumpy all evening, why would you even put me through this rubbish?"
"You're overreacting! I was taken off guard, that's all! You're acting like a madman!"
"You're avoiding the point! Do you even like me at all? Was this all just a plan to humour me? Is that it? 'Oh, James keeps asking me out, I might as well say yes to get him off my back!' Are you even attracted to me? At all?"
Gaping like a fish out of water, the redhead didn't say anything.
"That's what I thought." Muttered James, who grabbed his cloak and was halfway to the door before Lily thought to call after him.
"James, wait!"
But he paid her no heed.
L/J
"And so," Marlene said, after hearing the entire tale, "you decided to come here, crying to me, instead of fixing it? You do like him, don't you?"
"I do! A lot! I freaked out and now I'm feeling terrible. And that's the truth."
Asking all deities in her head why seemed the only logical person able to put two and two together, she said, "If that's the case, then just tell him that. Can't make things worse now, can you?"
"But - "
"Nothing doing, you are telling him right now!"
And so Lily found herself standing outside the seventh year boys dormitory. Upon knocking, she heard James's voice, "It's open."
Stepping in, she saw James lying on his bed, his feet where his head should've been, chucking a small ball at the wall over and over again. There was no one else in the room.
"What do you want?" He sighed, once he saw who it was.
"I came to say I'm sorry, and I should've said this then, but I'm saying this now. Better late than never. I like you, James Potter, a lot. I think I have for a while now. I went on that date with you because I wanted to, so badly. But then... I don't know. I freaked, when I realised just how much it is that I like you and just how easy it would be for you to, I don't know, break my heart or something. But, the thing is, I was so focused on not getting hurt that I ended up hurting you instead. So, maybe we can give today another chance?"
While Lily had been speaking, James had sat up, and once she had said her piece, he walked towards her, slowly, deliberately.
"You have my word on this, Lily Evans, I will never break your heart. And I wouldn't say no to a redo of today either."
Smiling, this time she leaned in for a kiss, and when their lips finally did meet, in that messy, smelly Gryffindor boys' dorm amidst old textbooks and Quidditch gear, fireworks exploded.