—only one—
He knew that it made no sense. Absolute stupidity, to fall for the Slytherin-lover, the bright one, the girl who broke conventions like so many plaster-of-Paris statues. It was stupidity because conventions, traditions, were all he knew.
And she was the only girl in the whole of Gryffindor who was out of his reach. She scared him, made him feel new, frightening things.
Sirius had had a crush on her, too (as a matter of fact, who hadn't?), and whether that was reassuring or unsettling, he wasn't sure. The two of them had been intrigued, fascinated, by the girl with the red-orange, shimmering hair, the girl who defended the underdog and was unimpressed by looks. But Sirius had moved on—that was Sirius's way, to try for something and go on to the next best thing if the first didn't work out. He didn't expect, demand love as his due. He didn't know how.
But James Potter did. Only son, brilliant student, star chaser—he had grown to require love and approbation, friendship and adulation, except from those who didn't deserve to give it to him, to approach his greatness (aka Slytherin and Co.). And his infatuation with Lily had grown to an obsessive need; his heart turned to a healthy plant but for the rotten, aching hole in the very center.
He needed her to fill that hole, to infuse it with her fiery passions, to heal it by bringing something vigorous, alive to this fragile prop, this cardboard perfect pretty boy that he had become. He needed her to love him.
It made him angry and confused when he saw her laugh at that greasy, evil boy's words, to smile at the sight of his sallow face. He tried to convince himself, over a pint or two, that she was playing hard-to-get, that sooner or later she would play into his hands like the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, he had brains as well as brawn, and when the drunken stupor left his senses, his thoughts sharpened by an acute headache, then reality flooded in, and the hole gaped and stung.
But he carried on valiantly, a perfect sham, now that he thought about it. Leading the Marauders, tempering Prongs's foolhardiness and Moony's sense, ignoring-but-not-really Wormtail's fawning. Complacently watching the school bow in his wake like so many dominoes.
But every now and then he would dare to lift his eyes to his angel, to her lofty perch, and his insides would ache and bleed with adoration, and yet, somehow, it was a good thing. He knew this in his subconscious, somewhere deep in his soul. It was a good thing because it brought him out of himself.