James thinks about her a lot.
He doesn't know why.
He wishes he doesn't.
But he does.
He thinks about her sharp wit, how she always has a comeback to anything he says. She turns around, red hair flying, eyebrows furrowed as she retorts in annoyance. Even though she tries to hide it, James notices the amusement in her green eyes – every time. Not to mention how good her legs look as she flounces away from him.
He smiles every time she raises her hand, offering an answer (correct, of course), or to volunteer to tutor a younger student. He's lost track of the amount of times he's seen her holed up in the corner of the common room, patiently explaining magical theory to a confused second year. Sometimes, if he knows she's teaching transfiguration, he goes over and demonstrates the spell with exaggerated motions – Lily may beat him in everything else academic, but his transfiguration prowess outshines hers. When he does this, Lily rolls her eyes and tells him she can do it herself, but she always finds the time at dinner to pull him away from his friends and mutter her thanks. He thinks they make a great team.
As he sees her laughing with her friends, he imagines how it would be if she laughed with him like that. He'd reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear, and tweak her nose before proudly shouting over to Sirius the obviously hilarious joke he'd just made. Sirius would roll his eyes as he laughed, causing Lily to snicker, and suddenly James would be the butt of the joke. He'd laugh along anyway, because that's what he does.
He wants to be able to reach over and tug on her Head Girl badge (maybe unbutton a portion of her shirt whilst he was at it…) but he knows she'd hex him for it. He doesn't think he'd mind too much, as long as the hex was well placed. Past experiences tell him that all her hexes are well placed.
Despite himself, he admires the way it took her so long to cut Snape from her life. She believes in the good people have inside them, and that it can overpower the bad. Her faith in Snape was misplaced, and he respects her even more for realising it.
She always holds her head high, even as she rejects him for the sixth time (if you count that time at the lake, which James does – it was very romantic, with Snape hung upside down between them), but she hesitates. With that hesitation, she opens a whole new world of hope. She almost said yes, and James can feel it.
He dreams about a seventh time lucky.
James thinks about her a lot.
He knows exactly why.