"Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius," James said over and over as he poked his best friend in the back with each call of his name. He knew Sirius was awake, but James was a man on a mission and he was not going to go away just because Sirius wasn't responding to him.

"Lord, what do you want?!" Sirius finally yelled. He turned onto his right side so that he came face to face with James, who simply shot him a triumphant grin before taking a seat on Sirius's bed.

"I have a problem to consult you about," James said, folding his hands in his lap and putting on his most serious expression, pun not intended.

"Are you going to bother me about Lily again?" Sirius asked with a groan. He slid his pillow out from under his head and put it over his face. James had gotten more and more insufferable about Lily during the year. Before it had been just a slight crush but now he had been hounding Sirius about how to ask her out every hour, on the hour for days.

Being lovestruck was one thing but waking Sirius in the middle of the night because James was angsting over a girl was taking it a step too far. He was tempted to go down to Dumbledore's office and demand what on earth he had been thinking when he assigned James the job of Head Boy.

"Why are you asleep?" James countered. It was the middle of the day on Sunday, the sun was streaming in from the window, he expected Sirius to be outside charming snowballs to hit Peter on the head from behind a tree.

"Someone keeps waking me up in the middle of the night so I'm trying to catch up lost time, are you going to bother me about Lily?" Sirius asked, his voice muffled by the pillow that was pressed against his face.

"Yes."

"Get. Out." Sirius deadpanned. He slid the pillow down to his chest and glared at James, who was not moving from his spot on the bed.

"Okay, okay, I'll leave, just tell me, should I get Lily flowers and then ask her out?" James asked, holding his hands out in surrender.

"No, don't get her flowers," Sirius replied drily and then kicked James in the back, sending his best mate onto the floor. James let out a high-pitched sound as his face came into contact with one of Sirius's stinky shoes, the rest of which were scattered around the dorm in various spots.

"Why not?" James whined from the floor. Sirius, finally accepting that he wasn't going to be getting any sleep any time soon, sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

"Because flowers grow in the ground, why would you spend money buying her something that she can get from the dirt for free during spring and summer?" Sirius asked with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't one for romance personally, but even he understood when something was romantic and when something wasn't. He highly doubted that Lily would be impressed with flowers, if she was even attracted to James that is, an argument that Sirius was not willing to get into again.

"But-"

"James, if you asked me out with a bouquet of flowers I would say no," Sirius interrupted.

"No offense mate, but you're not my type, Moony would be a much better boyfriend than you," James replied without missing a beat. Sirius sighed, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples in circles.

"Look, you like Lily, right?" Sirius said, pulling James to his feet. He threw his arm across his friend's shoulder and started leading him across the room.

"Yes."

"You want her to go out with you when you ask her out, correct?"

James nodded.

"Then you need to get more creative, you need to think bigger than just flowers, this is Lily, you want to show her that you're serious, pun not intended, and most importantly, you need to get out so that I can sleep before I kill you and hide your body in the Forbidden Forrest," Sirius added, shoved James through the door to their dorm, and slammed it shut behind him.

"He's turned into that annoying dog that follows you home when you tell him to go away," Sirius muttered to himself.

James was back three days later.

Sirius was eating his third apple pie in the kitchens when James barged in with an excited look on his face and his tie thrown over his right shoulder.

"I've got it!" James exclaimed. He grabbed a fork, took a seat opposite Sirius, and reached for the pie. Sirius glared as his best friend. He pulled the pie towards him to shield it from James.

"Got what?" Sirius asked.

"I know how I'm going to ask Lily out!" James cried excitedly.

"Why don't you go and bother Moony with this?" Sirius complained, and slammed his head down on the table.

"Moony is studying, and Wormtail always seems to disappear on Wednesday's," James said, reaching for the apple pie again, which Sirius pulled even farther away from him.

"And I'm busy eating, come back later," Sirius said.

"Nice try, but anyway, I've come up with the perfect way to ask Lily out," James said. Sirius eyed him as he bounced in his seat, fork still in hand with a wide grin on his face.

"Come out with it then," Sirius replied. He was going to end up hearing from James anyway, might as well get it over with now.

"A pun."

The only sound that could be heard for a few moments was that of the house-elves as they rushed about cleaning and cooking for the next meal of the day. One of them passed by the table that James and Sirius were sitting at and slid James his own pie, which he dug into enthusiastically.

"A pun?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"That's right, a pun," James agreed, nodding his head, cheeks bulging with the dessert.

"You are going to die alone," Sirius replied drily and turned his attention to his half-finished apple pie. "But I wanna see how this turns out so make sure I'm present when you ask her out, will you?"

James went ahead with his plan that following Saturday. He made sure to nudge Sirius before he approached Lily. Sirius dropped what he was doing and followed James over to Lily, where he promptly fell into an armchair on Lily's left side while James slid in on her right on the couch as smoothly as he could.

Lily looked up from her Potions textbook and looked between Sirius, who had crossed his legs and wiggled his fingers at her in hello, and James, who looked like he needed to go to the bathroom.

James had made sure to pick the time of day when the common room would be the least crowded, after all, if he was going to be shot down by Lily, he didn't exactly want everyone witness his pride getting stomped on. Sirius, on the other hand, was very disappointed that the common room was so empty, he had been hoping for a show.

"Is everything okay?" Lily asked James. She closed her textbook and put it to the side so that she could give James her full attention.

"Everything's fine, why do you ask?"

"Your face," Lily said, and the I-really-need-to-pee look disappeared immediately. She thought she heard Sirius mutter something like, "Oh this is going swell," but didn't bother asking.

"Ahem, no, nothing's wrong, but I've got a question to ask you," James said, moving closer to her. Sirius was beginning to wish he had some sort of recording device to capture all that was going on, that way he could watch what was happening over and over again.

"O-okay."

"Feel my shirt," James said, and yanked his collar towards Lily. Lily cautiously reached out to hold it, unsure of what she was supposed to be feeling for.

"How does it feel?"

"Nice? Clean? Soft?" Lily replied, the confusion clear in her voice.

"Do you know what this shirt is made out of?" James asked Lily. She shook her head no and let go of the collar.

"What's it made out of?"

"Well, it's 2% cotton, and 98% boyfriend material," James said. Lily's eyes widened as her cheeks began to take on a rosy colour.

"Are you asking me out?" Lily asked. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards and she fought hard to keep from bursting out into laughter. When she had daydreamed about James Potter asking her out on a date, she hadn't really thought this would be the way that it would happen.

But it seemed perfectly natural that this was what James would do.

"Are you saying yes?" he asked, looking down at his nails, acting as if his hands hadn't all of a sudden gotten sweaty from nerves.

"Yes."

"Then I am in fact asking you out," James said with a grin. He let out a breath that he hadn't realised that he had been holding and ran his hand through his hair. Lily grinned at him and reached for her Potions textbook again.

"You want to help me with my Potions?" she asked James, who nodded eagerly at her and moved closer to Lily still so that her textbook was sitting on both of their laps and put his arm around her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Sirius, sat forgotten, and stared on in astonishment from his seat, his mouth hanging open at the scene before him. He hadn't actually thought that Lily was going to say yes. He had been prepared to tease James mercilessly when Lily said no and tell him, "I told you so."

He left the pair to their "studying," because anyone with a brain knew that Lily was the last person to need help in Potions, and took a seat next to Remus instead, whose face was centimeters away from the parchment that he was jotting down notes on.

"Son of a bitch," Sirius said, staring at James and Lily. He never thought that he would've lived to see the day when someone would actually find James's dorky personality charming.

"Hey Moony," Sirius said, looking over at his friend. Remus hummed in response and kept on writing.

"Have I told you that you are looking as pale as a full moon today," Sirius said. Remus stopped writing and looked up from his parchment.

"Walk away, Sirius. Walk away."