When Ms. Colfer had paired Lily Evans with James Potter for a history project, Lily was sure her laser eyes would burn a hole in the table. That is, if she had laser eyes, which would be rather useful when dealing with Petunia Evans. And so, Lily dragged her stuff and herself across the classroom in order to sit next to James Potter. Lily Evans only really had one proper 'encounter' with James Potter; and she knew saying 'encounter' made him sound like a ghost, but that was the only way to describe it.
He had pulled her hair and called her 'carrots', like she was Anne of Green Gables or something. Not that James Potter could compare with Gilbert Blythe, who was smart, sweet, funny and handsome, and incidentally Lily's dream man. Granted, 'Carrotgate', as Lily had taken to calling it, had occurred three years ago, but growing up with Petunia meant Lily knew how to hold a grudge.
James turned and grinned at her, before facing front-ways again, as if he had no idea that Lily was seething through every pore. To be fair to him, he probably didn't. With a jolt, she realised that James was rather handsome, with black curls, which made him more like Gilbert Blythe than she had originally thought. Which was fine, because he had a distinct lack of other Gilbert-like qualities, so it's not like she could ever be attracted to him anyway.
However, this new revelation had startled Lily, so she subtly studied his profile. He had rather tanned skin and hazel eyes behind large, wire-rimmed glasses. She couldn't see his eyes properly right now, but they were usually twinkling with laughter at something one of his friends had said. His black hair was styled in a 'Coleman's cut', which basically meant short at the sides and back, but regular on top. It wasn't officially called a 'Coleman's cut', but had been renamed that by the young inhabitants of her town, due to the fact that seemingly every boy in St. Coleman's, the boys school in the town, had that same haircut. The top of his hair was curly and sort of wild, probably because he was constantly running his hands through.
So yes, James Potter may be better looking than she gave him credit for, but that didn't excuse Carrotgate. Satisfied, Lily turned her full attention to Ms. Colfer, who was just finished pairing the students off.
"In your pairs, you're to research an important figure in Irish history, and give a presentation on that person in three weeks time. There's a few minutes left in class, so you can brainstorm your ideas with your partner now, and by the end of class I want to know who you're doing your presentation on. I won't be giving you much time in class to work on this, so you'll have to put in your own work outside of school."
"So Evans," James Potter began with a lazy smile, "who do you want to do your project on?"
"Wolfe Tone," Lily answered immediately.
James Potter scoffed. "Aw, come on. He's boring."
"He's the Father of Irish Republicanism," Lily replied, eyes narrowing slightly.
"He lived in the 1700s Evans; he's boring," James Potter said.
"Fine so, who would you like to do?" Lily asked.
"Éamon de Valera. He's such a morally grey person. Plus, he's very important to Irish history."
"I'm still mad at him for killing Michael Collins," Lily refuted, crossing her arms.
James Potter stared at her for half a second, before bursting into laughter. "That's not confirmed Evans; it's only speculation." He paused. "Why don't we do Michael Collins for our project? His war tactics are really interesting."
Lily sighed. "I'd love to, but I feel like half the class will be doing him."
"That's true." James cocked his head to the side, thinking hard. After a second, he straightened up and grinned. "What about Countess Markievicz?"
"Do you have to tilt your head like that in order to think properly?" Lily couldn't stop herself from teasing.
James nodded solemnly. "I have to in order to group my seven brain cells together. They work best like that."
Lily has to try very hard to keep her lips from twitching upwards. "Seven? That's a bit aspirational, don't you think?" she asked, fighting to keep her face serious.
James cracked a grin. "What about the Countess?" he asked cheerfully, as of she hadn't just landed a devastating blow to his ego. Maybe she hadn't, she thought, and resolved to do better next time.
"That's a good idea actually. I'm happy with that, if you are," she replied. So he was smart. Well, that's absolutely fine.
"Thank you," he answered, still grinning. "My three brain cells worked hard to come up with that."
Lily found herself laughing again. She stopped abruptly, realising that maybe James was also funny, which was a trait that Lily had already used to describe Gilbert Blythe, which, once again, meant James was more Gilbert-like than she was happy to accept.
"You okay?" James asked, concerned, and Lily thought it must've seemed weird that she'd stopped laughing so suddenly. Instead of telling him she was fine, which she had originally meant to do, she ended up blurting out something much more embarrassing.
"Is my hair still the colour of carrots?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"Wha-" James began, before a look of understanding dawned on his face. "Do you seriously still remember that?" he asked, burying his face in his hands.
Lily winced at how crazy she sounded, but decided to plough on anyway. "Do you think I could ever forget 'Carrotgate'?" she joked.
"'Carrotgate'? It has a name?" he asked, raising his red face from his hands.
"It does now," she lied, not willing to admit to her three-year grudge.
"Jesus Lily, I apologised like three times."
And there was that. Another reason why she didn't want to admit to her three-year grudge. "I know," Lily said, pulling at the sleeve of her school jumper, feeling really stupid.
"If it helps," James said, a smile tugging at the edge of his lips, "your hair is definitely not the colour of carrots." Turns out he was also sweet. Lily smiled back, and felt a swooping sensation in her stomach.
Crap.