~ The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy who loves you ~

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Chapter One – The Lure of Trouser Fishing

"Look, Potter, it looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while, so why don't I stay here and you go sit over there?"

I tried to make the words sound threatening. Serious. Hell, I'd have settled for meaningful. As it was I just sounded vaguely irritated. Which possibly explained why my attempt at open hostility only made James' grin widen further. He did as he was told though, which was a result in itself as I'd never seen him do something I told him to without the threat of physical violence, but of course, being James Potter, he had to do it as ostentatiously as he could: he spread his arms wide as he lowered his body to a sitting position on the floor, bowing to me as went, before finally ending up cross-legged, still grinning inanely up at me.

We were sitting, cramped and uncomfortable, in a large cleaning supply cupboard. A locked cleaning supply cupboard. One which, just to make sure my day was completely crap, belonged to Filch, the caretaker. Not that any of this seemed to bother James particularly. This might have been because I was stuck in here with him, which provided him with a free pass to annoy me for however long we would end up in here. Of course, it might also have been because this was his plan all along.

From my awkward position on the upturned bucket I scowled at him, folding my arms irritably across my body. The scowl only intensified his crooked smile; I blinked and looked away, determined not to let it affect me. It wasn't that he was unattractive; far from it. But I knew that if I let the warmth in his smile persuade me into a better mood, then forgiveness wouldn't be far behind it.

And it was, after all, entirely his fault.

Apparently, whenever most boys were being taught the way girls work, James Potter was absent. And he clearly had never seen a romantic film or read a love story of any description. As a result, he seemed to have no concept of the idea of romance, or making a girl feel special and cherished and beautiful. The only answer I could come up with was that, with no guidelines to refer to, he had simply made up the rules himself. And unluckily for me, I got to be the guinea pig to his charming techniques. Forget sweeping me off my feet – James' idea of wooing someone went:

1) Girls are impressed by public declarations of your undying love – do so at every opportunity. Don't just stop with the girl – tell her friends, tell your friends – heck, tell random strangers in the corridors until she gets the hint and is suitably romanced.

2) No matter how many times the girl rejects you, she'll say yes eventually – just keep asking until you hit the magic number that changes her mind.

3) If all else fails, arrange to have her locked in a cleaning cupboard with you until she realises she loves you back.

Since parts one and two had failed spectacularly on every single occasion since we were both about twelve, James had finally hit upon number three. We'd been in here for about forty-five minutes so far, James having lured me in here by telling me it was a shortcut to the special new Common Room the two of us were entitled to use now that we were Head Boy and Girl. Thinking it was one of the many short-cuts he and his friends seemed to have found hidden all over the school over the years, I stupidly followed him in, not realising it was, in fact, a large cupboard.

I quickly discovered my mistake.

"What the hell - !" I spun around in the dark space and nearly walked into James, stood far too close behind me. "Where are we?"

There was a clicking sound as the door was locked. I looked around blindly, confused. James pointed his wand to the ceiling, muttered "Incendio", and light flickered into the room from the lamp that hung there. I stared around in stunned disbelief. I assumed he had lit the tiny room; I could hardly imagine someone else strategically placing little candles around the place like fairy lights which glittered from their various 'romantic' positions on top of upturned buckets and boxes of cleaning lotions.

Next to me, James stood grinning, his nervousness evident in the way he was turning his wand over and over between his fingers, his eyes resting lightly on me. He was waiting for my reaction. He didn't need to wait long.

"What the hell is all this?" I screeched.

"Do you like it?" he asked pleasantly. I gaped at him.

"What?"

James spread his hands, indicating the tiny space, and repeated his ridiculous question. "Do you like it?"

I stared at him, incredulous. "It's a cupboard, Potter! We're surrounded by mops! Now get out of the way so I can get out."

James didn't move. The nervous fiddling with his wand returned, though I could see there was a grin trying to break free from the way the corner of his mouth twitched a little. Annoyed, I shoved past him, heading for the door. He barely moved as I brushed angrily past him.

"I wouldn't bother," he said calmly as I yanked the door handle, rattling it in frustration. "I've locked it."

"Then unlock it!" I muttered, the word slipping out between clenched teeth. "Right now!"

"I can't."

He said the words so quietly I thought I'd misheard him at first. I continued rattling the door handle uselessly for several more seconds before getting frustrated and screeching with rage. This was ridiculous. Reaching into my back pocket I groped for my wand; it wasn't there. I swore under my breath, racking my memory in a vain attempt to remember when I last had it. Then...

I spun around to face James. "Have you taken my wand?"

James shrugged nonchalantly. "Might have."

This was too much. I flew at him, arms flailing, trying to steal back my wand, hoping that at the very least I could cause him physical pain. I hadn't reckoned on James' six or seven years of Quidditch training having sharpened his reflexes – he was used to dodging Bludgers constantly and making sudden dives, and so neatly sidestepping a mildly homicidal girl was not particularly challenging for him.

I stopped myself just short of slamming into the back wall and turned to face him. My chest heaving with exertion, I glared at James. I probably looked feral; in the attempted struggle my hair had messed up, falling out of its neat ponytail, and I was pretty sure my furious eyes were wild. Either way it didn't dissolve the wide grin on his face. My jaw set as I stared at him.

"Open this door, Potter. Right now!" I spoke slowly, enunciating each word, feeling my rage making them vibrate. My eyes had to have been bulging by now.

James spread his hands apologetically – or at least it looked apologetic. "No can do, I'm afraid."

"Why not?!" I definitely sounded a bit crazy now. I realised my teeth were bared with a twinge of embarrassment, though the twinge was nowhere near large enough for me to hide them again.

James smiled once again. I could see every one of his own gleaming white teeth. I fought the urge to slam my fist into them.

"Well, mostly because I don't want to. It's not exactly a punishment for me to be locked in here with you." He grinned as if I should be won over by his honesty. "But also it's because there's a FailSafe Locking Charm on the key which means we can't get out without it. So things like Alohomora wouldn't work anyway -"

"So why did you steal my wand then?" I snapped, the feral rage giving way to pure irritation now. "If I couldn't use it to get away from you anyway?"

"Well, I had a feeling you'd go a bit mad when I told you." He paused and indicated me with a sweep of his arm. "You know, kind of like you just did, only with magic. And I didn't really fancy being hexed to death. So I took it from your pocket as we walked in."

"Where's the key?"

"Never mind where the key is -"

"Potter." I tried to force calm into my voice but it was getting increasingly difficult now that I had sighted my escape route. "Give me the key or I'll take it myself."

He grinned openly now; a brief laugh escaped his lips. "I'd love to see you try."

I folded my arms aggressively. "You think I won't, Potter?"

"I believe you will," he answered. "But I'd still love it if you tried."

"And why's that, then?" I asked. My voice positively dripped with sarcasm.

He laughed out loud now. "Well, for a start, the key's somewhere on my person. And I don't have any pockets."

I narrowed my eyes at him as realisation set in. "You've hidden it down your trousers?"

"Well, my boxers if you want to get technical -"

"Believe me, Potter, I want nothing less than to get technical about anything that involves your underwear!" I turned away from him, beyond annoyed now: his stupid triumphant grin was making things worse. "Okay, fine, you win; I won't try to get the key. But why, Potter? Why lock me in here in the first place?"

He shrugged, his face full of helpless apology. I'd have given in and punched him there and then if his eyes hadn't looked so sincere; if they'd held even an ounce of the mocking or triumph I was expecting to find in them – or a shred of the happiness they'd had a few minutes ago at the idea of me fetching the key from his pants - he'd have been laid flat out on the floor. Then we'd see who was in control here.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Ever hear of a Common Room?" I snapped. My voice was under control now – I was capable of not shrieking at him like an angry owl, but forcing the anger from my voice had allowed an unbelievable amount of sarcasm to creep in. Meaning that, far from my beating him to death with his own shoe, it looked far more likely that I would snap at him to death instead. For a start, I wasn't finished. Far from it. "It's what most people think of first! Most normal people don't automatically decide to lock the other person in a bloody cupboard!"

"I tried the Common Room," James replied. His voice, contrastingly, was even and pleasant. So, clearly, he wasn't going to play along and argue back. Git. "You never talk to me."

"I talk to you all the bloody time, Potter!"

He was shaking his head now; I watched his hair ripple and tried not to imagine ripping every single one out from its roots. He lifted his eyes to me so that I could see the reflection of the candlelight flickering in them, burnishing the hazel to an almost-honey-gold colour.

"You don't." He said the words flatly; there was no inflection in them, nothing I could have found offence in. "So I thought if I could get you somewhere where you had to listen to me, you might -"

"Fall in love with you?" I snapped waspishly. I sat down heavily on an overturned bucket, resigned to my fate. I closed my eyes tightly in frustration at the ridiculousness of the situation. This was clearly his plan – keep me in here long enough and eventually I'd realise that I did love him after all and I'd just been completely blind for the last six years, and we'd buy a little cottage in the country and get married and live happily ever after and have fifteen children and a d-

"No. Hear me out."

The words were a whisper, barely an expulsion of breath, but they were loud enough in the confines of the tiny room to break into my angry imagination and attract my attention. He sidled a little closer to me, noticing my momentary lapse in thinking of all the most painful and humiliating hexes I could possibly use on him. Looking up from my less-than-dignified seat I scowled at him.

"Look, Potter," I said bluntly. "It looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while, so why don't I stay here and you sit over there?"

By now nearly an hour had gone by since we first entered the cupboard, and very little had changed. I had yet to undergo the total personality transplant that would make me realise that James was in fact my knight in shining armour and that I'd apparently spent all of puberty dreaming of entirely the wrong fairytale romantic hero for myself when clearly the starring role should have been James' all along. I had confidence in the extreme that it would never happen. James, apparently, did not.

"I don't try to annoy you, you know, Evans," came the voice from the floor. I shuffled around on my bucket, trying to escape him. Unsurprisingly, I was unsuccessful.

"Yeah, well, you don't exactly make a very convincing case for yourself," I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear the derision. "For future reference, locking me in a cupboard isn't a great way to put me in a good mood."

He chuckled to himself briefly and brought his knees up to his chin so that he could clasp his hands around them and watch me more comfortably.

"What is it about me that annoys you so much, then?"

I snapped my head to him. There was no smirk on his face. He was, unbelievably, actually asking.

"D'you want a list, then?" I said, making sure my arms were still tightly folded so that he could see I wasn't in the mood to deal with him, so that it was clear that his sudden sincerity wasn't affecting me in exactly the same way the stupid candles weren't affecting me. I'm not sure who I was trying to kid, myself or him, but either way I needed to convince somebody that not even a tiny part of me wanted to listen to anything he had to say.

"So it's a whole list?" James' voice sounded faintly amused, though his serene expression did not change. "I'd still like to hear it. For future reference."

"Maybe I'll tell you sometime when we've both got a spare year free." I smiled sarcastically at him, secure in my triumph.

James merely lifted his head from his palms so that he could indicate the tiny space around us with his hands. "Well, in case you hadn't noticed, Evans, we are locked in a cleaning supply cupboard. I've got no desire to leave just yet and you've got no way of getting out without the key. And as getting that key involves some intense trouser fishing from you, I'd say we've both got quite a lot of time to kill. Wouldn't you?"

"You know something, Potter? Forget the stupid list – that, right there, is why you annoy me! That!"

I hadn't realised the words were going to come out until they did. I had planned, throughout his little speech, to cross my arms tighter and flick my hair in an irritated way, and make all the exasperated sighing noises and the frustrated huffing sounds, and to stare him out until he was embarrassed and had to look away. I'd been going to be haughty and uninterested in anything he said. But because he was James Potter and because he'd spent the last six years perfecting his art, he knew precisely how to irritate me. And just then, I didn't care if he'd done it deliberately or not, and I didn't care that I found him vaguely attractive in spite of it, and I really didn't care that I'd planned not to say any of this and punish him with the not knowing, because suddenly I was determined that he was going to find out exactly why he made my blood boil on a daily basis.

"You're so bloody arrogant!" I continued, my words a furious hiss. Soon I would graduate to shrieking at him again, if I let six years of frustration boil over. Unfortunately for James, it looked as though the eruption wasn't far away. "You honestly can't understand why someone might dislike you instead of fawning over you, can you? And why should you – you're James Potter after all, aren't you, the famous Quidditch player- except you're not! You play for a poxy school team! Not professionally! You're not even Seeker – you're a bloody Chaser, your position's not even unique! But somehow you think that makes it okay for you to hex people who annoy you and that messing up your hair makes you look sexy and interesting, and that you can do stupid bloody things like, oh, I don't know, locking people in cupboards with you?"

James looked nonplussed. He had lifted his head from his chin and was staring at me, hazel eyes wide behind his glasses, his mouth slightly agape with shock at my outburst. It was one he had heard before but rarely with as much venom as right now, and never before as a reason why I didn't give him the time of day. Normally he got it because I'd walked in on him doing something like taking the best seats in the Common Room away from younger students. The last time I'd shouted at him in a big way had been back in fifth year, eighteen months ago, when he'd duelled with Severus. I'd never really gone for him, not before, not like this.

He leant back against the door behind him, still cross-legged, and lifted his finger-locked hands to rest on the back of his head, pushing his hair up as he did so. His awkward position meant that his lean body was stretched out a little, his long legs carefully folded, and his eyes never left my face. The fact that his gaze sent stardust racing inexplicably across my skin irritated me further – how dare he be affecting me like that when I was trying to shout at him? Before I could launch back into my rant he had opened his mouth in an attempt to defend himself.

"You don't know what you're talking about -" was as far as he got before his words fanned the flames of rage in my chest and I stood up, the force of it sending my bucket skittering across the floor. I pointed a finger at him, aware I looked ridiculous, not caring because I'd lost all self-control now anyway.

"You're doing it right now!" I shrieked. I knew it – I'd returned to shrieking in less than five minutes flat. A personal record. "You're so bloody arrogant you actually have the nerve to preach to me about myself! You think you know me so well, when you know nothing! You just assume everything! You clearly thought locking me in here would make me fall in love with you, the same way you hid the key in your trousers because you seriously think I wouldn't go there if I was desperate enough!"

His eyes flicked up to mine now, settling on my eyes alone instead of my entire face. He slid his hands protectively over his lower half.

"Stay out of my trousers, Evans."

I let out a scream of laughter at the absolute ridiculousness of the sentence, and as I did so I felt my resolve snap. I was getting that key, and I was leaving this room. And then, I was researching the most vicious hexes I could find and making sure James Potter could never irritate me ever again.

I launched myself at him for the second time that hour, determined that I would find the key, not particularly caring whereabouts he might have placed it. This time, however, he fully anticipated my attack, and as I fell on him he grabbed my wrists, fending me carefully away from his trousers. His strength surprised me – I was standing and I had the added bonus of being absolutely furious, yet he was easily overpowering me: thus far the closest my fingers had got to the contents of his trousers was scrabbling uselessly at the material. I felt myself being slowly lowered to the floor as we struggled and as my desperation intensified three things clicked into place in my brain at the same time.

I needed that key.He wasn't going to give up – he was stronger, fitter, and more determined than me, and I would get tired first. Drastic times called for drastic measures, and this time was more drastic than most. Distracting him was the only thing that might work, and there was only one way to do that…

This in mind, I executed my hastily thought-of plan quickly, before I could actually think about it and remind myself how low I had truly sunk.

I dipped my head carefully, before either of us even had time to blink, and crushed my lips against his, recklessly, stupidly. I could feel the burn of the day-old stubble on his jaw scraping against my skin as I did. My plan was only partly successful; I felt his grip on my wrists loosen a little, but his body had stiffened beneath him, and though his mouth moved in time to mine he wasn't truly kissing me back. Unexpectedly, this realisation irritated me - I was kissing him, wasn't I? Shouldn't he be enjoying it, at least a little bit? I tried harder, intensifying my kiss, determined he would enjoy it, ignoring the fact that I was starting to. Finally he turned his head, pulling his mouth out of reach, and locked his eyes back on mine.

"Finished?" he asked. I let out an exasperated groan and he gently pushed me from him. "Well, Evans, I've got to admit – I don't know you well enough to expect things like that."

I sat uselessly on the floor, staring at my feet, letting his words wash over me. It was easier to do that than to be inside my head right then. Confusion wasn't the word for the way I felt. All I knew was that I had enjoyed kissing him more than I'd ever thought I would, far more than he clearly had, and I couldn't understand why he'd pushed me away any more than I could understand why I suddenly wished he hadn't.

"Apparently I'm not arrogant enough for you to kiss me when you want something, just for you to never talk to me, right?"

"No." I said the words quietly, sullen. He turned his head to me, an eyebrow raised carefully.

"Oh?"

I sighed. "Look. I know you're not a complete idiot. Oh, don't look so shocked. I know you can be funny and nice and I know you're clever and all of that. But you can also be really, really arrogant, and that's what I can't get past. I know you're a nice person under all that. But your ego ruins you."

I cracked one eye open to look at him: I'd closed them tightly as I spoke – it made being completely honest with him without being ready to kill him as I did so much, much easier. He looked surprised but his frown held concentration rather than offence, as if he was mentally writing this all down for future reference.

"Is that why you've never given me the time of day? Until just now, of course."

I screwed my face up as shame burned it. "Look, can we put 'just now' down to nearly two hours of being locked in a tiny room making me desperate?"

James raised his eyebrow once more; the other slid up to join it this time. "Desperate?"

"No, not desperate – just – a bit – well…oh, you know what I mean!" My exasperation was back, this time without the fury that went with it before. "Look, I like you. I do. But when your hobbies include hexing one of my friends every time you see him – it doesn't matter that we don't talk much anymore, it's still not nice." I added that part before he had time to offer it as an excuse to hate Sev as much as Sev hated him; I'd seen his mouth slide open as I spoke, ready to say it. I continued now. "When you do things like that, how can you expect me to give you a chance?"

"So…." James had returned to frowning, though the corner of his mouth had lifted a little. Clearly, he was having some interesting thoughts. "So, if I stopped all that, and I changed, you'd give me a chance?"

I shrugged: his face fell a little.

"Why not?"

"Well, for a start, how would I know you'd stay like that? Or that you're serious about it?"

"Of course I'd be serious!" James looked mildly outraged at the suggestion he'd be anything other than focussed. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you might change your mind halfway," I offered lamely, and James shook his head violently.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "You tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. If I do it right, and stick to it, you owe me a date. A proper one. Deal?"

"Sounds fair," I mused. "And what if you lose?"

"You can have anything of mine you want."

I looked sideways at him. "Anything?"

James nodded. "Anything." He held out his hand for me to shake. "So, do we have a deal?"

I hesitated, then took it. He wrapped his fingers firmly around mine; I could feel the calluses from his broomstick sliding over my skin. "Deal. Now, can we get out of this bloody cupboard, please?"

"But of course," James grinned. He pulled me to my feet and strode the three steps it took to get to the cupboard door.

"Shall I turn around while you get the key out?"

"No need," he smiled.

"Why not?"

"It's not in my trousers." To illustrate, he placed his hands behind his neck and lifted a long cord from around it. Dangling from it was a tiny bronze key. I gaped as he inserted into the lock and twisted the handle once.

"Git," I said. He grinned wider in response and stepped aside from the door, indicating with a half-bow and a sweep of his arm that it was to be "Ladies first" to exit. I pushed past him in my eagerness to be free. I'd got halfway down the corridor when I heard his voice calling me back.

"Oi! Evans!"

I turned. "What?"

"You haven't told me my tasks yet!"

Now it was my turn to grin. "I'll get back to you on that." As I walked back to my dormitory, I was practically skipping at the thought of the things I could make James Potter do. It looked like my final year of school would be much, much more fun than the first six had been….

Author's Note

This story is one I originally began about three, maybe even four, years ago, which was up on the site under the imaginative title of "The Trials of James Potter." I got about four chapters in before I realised that it was absolutely awful, and that I was literally making it up as I went along, and therefore I took it down again.

However, I have since revised it and this is the new, vastly improved, version. I know precisely where the story is going and it's written far better than the original. So this is chapter one, I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know when chapter two will be up, but it's all been planned out, so it shouldn't be too far away.

The quote above is from one of my favourite books, as written beneath it, because I loved that line and I thought it worked perfectly for this particular story. I highly recommend it – it's beautifully written and very original.

(Also, I have had emails before in other fics telling me that I spelt "inane" wrong and it needs an 's'. "Inane" is a word, meaning 'silly, pointless, foolish', and not a misspelling of "insane!" So please, please don't email me telling me I've spelt it wrong as it gets very annoying after a while, especially as most of the emails are very patronising even though they're completely wrong! )