Author's Note: I've never actually wrote anything like this before, so I'm just trialling... I can't actually take full credit for the idea, because it sort of came to me reading a headcanon. James is sort of a fangirl. Lily's sort of a goth. Neither are quite there yet. It's weird, slightly OOC stuff (or maybe just stepped away from that stereotype, where she's a genius with really refined taste and he's never actually even looked at a library.) but I hope you like it anyway. Depending on both reactions and other projects (I seem to have started about 10 more stories than I have time to handle recently) I might continue with it, but for the moment it's just a one shot. I really hope you like it! xD

Surprise as this will be to you all, I don't actually own Harry Potter. Shocker, I know x

We live and breathe words. ... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone~ Cassandra Clare

James Potter wasn't used to finding his lessons quite so difficult. Usually, he retained decent grades only through an extensive reading list and a particular intellectual prowess, even if he did say so himself... Essays were cobbled together in the small hours of the morning, and spells were mastered upon the first attempt. It was true that, contrary to popular belief, James rather liked the library- with the exception of Madam Pince, who seemed to think him untrustworthy ever since he'd been caught chucking acid pops at the back of Malfoy's head. And he was rather more fond of bookshops than he liked to admit. But that was besides the point.

In previous years, he'd seen students huddled over pieces of parchment and ancient textbooks, working for hours on end to perfect essays that would end up mediocre to the very last degree, and he would scoff. Not because he was particularly big headed (that would imply a certain level of investment in grades, and James preferred a certain indifference, adopting the role of lovable prankster, instead.) but because he just didn't have to work that hard to achieve mostly acceptable grades... He was the son of Dorea and Charlus Potter, after all, and results came naturally. Everything had a tendency to serve itself on a silver platter... Including his exam grades.

Much to his chagrin, however, this year was different.

So it was with a heavy heart that he climbed the stairs to the dormitory, intending to put aside Hugo and Bronte in favour of poor Bathilda Bagshot, who, he was semi percent sure, was making it up as she went along.

Most notable historian of a century his backside.

All of this flew out the window, however, the moment he entered the dormitory and happened across the very last person he'd ever expect to see.

"Evans!" He cried in surprise, nearly dropping his books. "Umm... Did you get lost on the way to the head girls office or something? Because I hate to have to tell you this, but you're in the boys dormitory."

She laughed and stood up from where she'd been sat primly on the windowsill, flashing him a smile that made his heart beat somewhat erraticly.

Get a grip on yourself, he reprimanded. You've just been in head meeting with the girl for three hours straight.

Common sense suggested that, after spending a variably large number of hours in her company each week, James should be able to be in the same room as her without wanting to throw himself on top of her.

Every nerve in his body seemed to suggest otherwise.

"Actually." She said, standing up. "I was looking for Remus. He leant me a book the other month, and I still haven't returned it, so I thought I'd better nip up and give it back. I didn't want him thinking I'd stolen it or something."

James laughed. "Unlikely, Evans. Remus seems to think you're a seraph, incapable of wrong. He'd sooner assume the book was stolen by the giant squid and set fire to under water."

She laughed, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "That's a somewhat disturbing vision. I think he's viewing me through rose tinted glasses there. Either that or he's confused me with Seraphiel, in which case I'm concerned. I've never really taken to emitting firey-god radiation."

He smirked. "Well, I'm not sure about the fire thing, but even you have to admit you're the poster child for teachers pet. You're the most responsible person I know. Remus likes to know that sort of thing still exists. He tires of playing parent to us all sometimes, you know."

"I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended, Potter. But thank you anyway."

A brief silence ensued, in which James rubbed the back of his neck and Lily tucked a loose curl of hair behind her ear. They'd not really had much opportunity to test their sort-of-not-really friendship since their truce over the summer holidays, in which James agreed to stop asking her out and playing stupid pranks, and she agreed to stop nagging, hexing and/or punching. At head meetings they were cordial, at prefect meetings they were friendly, and in class or halls or the great hall they were almost like friends.

But there always people there to stop things becoming awkward. There was always Eliza, to start a discussion about the triviality of unicorns, or Remus, to bring up exams and prefect duties, or Sirius, to badger on about whatever random crap entered his head at any given moment. Even Peter, gorging himself with the kind of concentration typically associated with professional wizards chess, provided a welcoming distraction when things got awkward. Now that James was alone with her (which, it might be useful to note here, he had been longing for ever since about fourth year) he realised he had absolutely nothing to say...

"So," He said, casting around wildly. "What- what book was it you borrowed from Remus. Or books because there might have been, you know, more than one."

He cursed himself mentally as she cast him an amused glance. Smooth, Potter. Really smooth.

"Just one, actually. It's, um, Edgar Allan Poe? I borrowed it because it had The Fall of the House of Usher in it, which isn't in my mother's copy. It's darker than most classical literature I've read, I think. But I found it sort of-" She broke off, looking at James's face, and smiled half ruefully, half self consciously. "Sorry. I get kind of... overzealous about books. I'll just shut up."

James leaned against the bedpost, crossing his arms over his chest and surveying her, his brow furrowed. A faint pink tinge entered her cheeks.

"What?"

"I was just wondering." He said. "What you thought the significance of the house splitting in two was, as the narrator fled the house?"

Lily's brow furrowed, confused. "Wait. You've read Edgar Allan Poe?"

James nodded. "Yeah. I actually gave Remus that book, on his birthday, three years ago."

"Oh!" Lily beamed. "That explains the hoof print on the first place. Your patronus is a stag, right?"

James laughed, thinking about what 'Seraphial' would say if she knew the truth about that mark. "Yeah. Something like that. Did you enjoy it?"

Lily laughed, looking at the book. "I think perhaps enjoy is the wrong word. I was more... Transfixed? I couldn't physically put it down."

James grinned. "Merlin, I know. I was a bit freaked out by the end, but I loved it. His take on insanity kind of shook me up a little bit. I mean, I know it was written before the muggles could treat stuff like that, but come on! That guy is so obviously a nutcase it's unreal."

Lily's eyes widened. "Do you think?"

"You don't?" James asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No!" She said. "I mean, I think that's what Poe was probably implying. But whenever I thought Usher's character was refreshingly honest, actually. He saw the world a certain way, and who are we to say that the way he saw it isn't the right way, just because we can't see past the end of our noses?"

James shook his head. "It's not just because it's a world the narrator can't see, Evans. It's because it's creepy! The things Usher saw and invented frightened even him."

"So just because they're frightening, that means they're not real?" Lily challenged, a half smile on her face. James shrugged.

"No. But I mean, come on. Sometimes it's better to hold reality at bay, if it means that houses are going to start splitting into two and sinking into the ground, vanishing altogether. I think Usher brought down his own home, with the power of his own imagination, and his own perception of what you're calling the truth. And he didn't even know the narrator properly. I mean, he fancies that he's ill, so he calls on his so called best mate who he hasn't seen for years to come take care of him and his sister. It's nuts!"

Lily hotly protested, and the debate continued, until they found themselves sat next to the book shelf.

"Oh." Lily said, looking at the crammed set of bookshelves in wonderment. "Are these all Remus's?"

James snorted. "Hardly. Most of them are mine." He ran his finger down the spines. "Remus's the book shelf on the left. Make sure you put it in alphabetical order, though. He's insane about his books."

Lily laughed, and slotted the book into the slot he pointed to, before turning her attention to the bookshelf that belonged to James.

"Wow. You have a lot of classics."

He laughed, somewhat embarrassedly.

It was true that he had quite a large collection of muggle literature. Austen and Shakespeare and the Brontes and Dickens and Hugo. Sirius teased him mercilessly, but James could never bring himself to step away from the age old books his parents had passed onto him. His mother had instilled her love of classical literature, his father the kind of reverence for paper, crisp and worn beneath your fingers, that no one other than James ever seemed to really understand.

The fact of the matter was, no one had ever really got why James loved books. Moony, perhaps, rather liked books. But James had never seen him do the thing that James knew he did. That thing where he seemed to fall, fall endlessly, into the yellowing pages of an age old book, and pass right by the well kept spine, landing on his feet in a world that was thousands of years older than he would ever grow to be and had, somehow, survived.

Whilst Remus read Bathilda Bagshot, James read Henry Lawson. Whilst Remus read Edward Pager, James read Emily Bronte. Whilst Remus read Cassandra Smithly-Wright, James read Robert Frost. Whilst Remus read to inform, James read to escape.

It was true that Remus liked some muggle literature. But he didn't love it like James. James was basically what his mother liked to call a fangirl. And it was humiliating.

Especially with Lily running her hands along the spines of those books, and looking at him in wide eyed bewilderment.

Lily's eyes landed on something, and she snorted.

"Black Beauty?" She asked.

"What's wrong with that?" James exclaimed.

"Nothing." Lily said. "It's just... Well, I read it with my mum when I was about 7. Or at least, I tried. We couldn't get halfway through. It's a bit... boring."

"Boring?" James cried, incredulously. "It's one of the most beautifully written masterpieces of a century, with the heart rendering story of a neglected, abused horse accounted for in the compassionate words of a human who yearned to know what it was to be the beasts that roamed her childhood but in the end must admit that she is human, and can never truly understand what Black Beauty experienced."

Lily looked at him. "Wow. No wonder you're a scrawny little twit with no pubic hair to speak of, Potter. You really are a girl."

He gasped. "Ouch! Mind your tongue, Evans! Little James has feelings!"

"Little what? Oh. Oh, Merlin!" She laughed, clapping her hands over her ears and moaning. "I did not want to know that, Potter. For the love of Circe, that's completely disgusting!"

He grinned. "Kidding, Evans. Seriously, you can take your hands away from your ears. I was joking, I don't really call my you-know-what Little James."

She laughed. "Oh, thank Merlin, I was beginning to think I could never look you in the eye-"

"Sirius does, though." He grinned.

"Aah!" She cried, grimacing. "Godric's G-String, Potter!"

He laughed. "I didn't know Godric wore a G-String, actually."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Okay, this conversation is taking us nowhere. I am going to return to the issue of Black Beauty. The thing has absolutely no plot! It's like just the ramblings of a horse and it's miserable little life. Things happen, kid. Get over it. And as for this Potter-nonsense of yours about it being the story of a human wanting to be a horse, Sewell wrote the book from the point of view of a horse. It's the most tedious book ever written!"

And so it wore on. James watched as Lily replied to his heated comments about the book, as their conversation spiralled, from enthused conversations about the world's the books contained to impassioned debates about metaphors and significance and back again.

It turned out that Lily wasn't really a fan of the classics, despite having been caught red handed with almost every single short story and poem ever written by Edgar Allan Poe. She despised Austen. She abhorred Frost. She hated Shakespeare.

How, how do you hate Shakespeare, James wondered.

But he found, as Lily brushed a curl behind her ear and talked animatedly with her hands, that he didn't much care.

"Okay." He said exasperatedly. "Okay. I still don't see how anyone in their right minds can dislike Black Beauty, but I'll let it drop. I can be a grown up."

"Can you really?" She asked, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "I reckon someone should inform the press. McGonagall can tap dance in joy, Dumbledore can sing opera, and Slughorn can take pictures."

He rolled his eyes. "Har har. I think they'd be more shocked by the fact that their head girl dislikes Black Beauty."

She laughed. "I think I'm a bit of a letdown in the literary department. People expect me to read Austen and Hugo and whoever the hell else that you have on here. But I can't stand them."

James laughed. "No. You've just never given them the chance. There must be something on my book shelf that you like!"

She rolled her eyes, but moved back to examining the bookshelf. Finally, she gave a triumphant shout, and pulled out a book entitled 'Animal Farm.'

James pulled a face. "You know, I don't think I've ever read that one. It looked like one of my dad's."

Her eyes widened. "You've never read Animal Farm? Seriously? It was one of the first books my dad ever read Petunia and me, well before the Hare and the Tortoise and Cinderella."

"The what and the what and the what?" James asked, his eyes incredulous and brimming with curiosity. Lily mentally slapped herself.

Pureblood. Right.

"It's about communism... Though I don't suppose the wizarding world really has communism, does it? Or, at least, it would be called something else." She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, her eyes far away, before handing James the book. "You should read it. I know it's really short, but it's far better than your namby pamby romance novels about whiny, puny horses. And, shock, horror, it's from this century! Gasp!"

James rolled his eyes, but took the book. "I'll read it. If you read something from me?"

Lily said nothing as he reached out onto the shelf and pulled out the book, worrying her bottom lip.

"Okay, so my shelf is pretty short on Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley and Ann Radcliffe, but this should suit your gothic tastes."

"Are you calling me a goth?" Lily asked, laughing as she took the book.

"A bit of black nailpolish and eye liner, and some serious changes in musical taste, and your transformation would be complete." James informed her solemnly. She laughed.

"Fine. I'll read-" She squinted at the cover. "Wuthering Heights, and you read Animal Farm. We'll see who has the last laugh. And I promise to give this back before two months are over, hence restoring my seraph-ile reputation."

He laughed. "Deal. Tell me when you've finished, and we can come up here and debate about the finer points of Heathcliff's character, and this rather suspicious looking pig on the front cover."

Lily grinned fiendishly as she got up and brushed herself off. "Sounds like a date."

James blinked in shock. "Does it?" He asked, shock and hope creeping into his voice. Lily turned at the door, and laughed.

"No. It most definitely is not a date."

He laughed. He didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed- much as he wanted to, dating Lily was still a rather scary prospect. Perhaps he should mentally prep himself for this next meeting.

"An intellectual debate about books, then." He laughed.

"Sounds good." She replied, and left the room, leaving only a hint of vanilla and thyme in her wake, clinging to the scent of James's secret library. (Except that it wasn't really all that good of a secret, at all, when Padfoot ribbed him constantly about it. And enjoyed shouting about it to the whole Great Hall.)

He closed his eyes. Books.

After all this time, all these grand schemes in which he'd tried to persuade Lily to just look at him, books had been the answer.

Into the silence of the dormitory, he laughed as he had never laughed before in his life, drunk on the euphoria that this impromptu book club had brought.