Chapter Two
Sirius was right, James was extremely stubborn. Unfortunately, Remus was also right and Lily was equally as stubborn, something that put the two of them at a stalemate for the next two years. Nearly every single day, James would ask Lily on a date, sometimes even twice in one day! And every single day, Lily would reject him, typically calling him a foul name as she did so and occasionally slapping him if his pick up lines crossed her line.
James's pick up lines quickly escalated from moderately cute and relatively annoying to utterly desperate and downright irritating. The marauders went through a phase where they couldn't stand to be around James because all he seemed to do for about months was devise new pick up lines to try to win Lily over. Needless to say, none of them worked. James eventually came to his senses and stopped spending so much time on asking Lily out, though he certainly didn't give up, and spent more time tending to his dropping grades and deteriorating friendships.
Many days passed when Lily was asked on a date or two, and they often looked something like this…
"Oi! Evans!" James called for her as they left Professor McGonagall's room.
"Quit yelling potter!" McGonagall called after him, shaking her head at the boy.
Sirius took this moment to pick on his favourite teacher by saying, "You know, Minnie, it's not appropriate to yell to somebody to stop yelling. A bit hypocritical don't you think?"
McGonagall sighed, as she was very sick of Sirius Black insisting on bantering with her incessantly. "Look, Black, I will keep giving you detentions if you don't leave me alone. And please, stop calling me Minnie. It's Professor to you. Now leave."
"Don't worry, Goggles, you don't have to treat me like you hate me just because my fellow classmates are around, they all know that I'm your favourite student and they know that they don't stand a chance for your affections." Minerva flushed slightly at the even worse nickname. She couldn't understand why this one student was such a pain in the ass.
"Mr Black you are most certainly not my favourite student now please leave my classroom before I give you a detention for insulting my name once again." Her irritation was clearly present in her tone of voice, and the boy seemed to finally catch her drift.
As Sirius finished placing his materials into his bag he responded, "I'll let you off the hook this time, Minerva, but don't fear, I'll be back." Sirius left the room dramatically, as though he were a hero leaving his love to go into battle.
"Of course you'll be back! You have class with me three times a week!" A clearly flustered and irritated McGonagall called after him before mumbling to herself, "I want to be a professor! What was I thinking?"
Sirius didn't have to travel far down the hallway to find his friend in the midst of talking to none other than Lily Evans.
"What do you want, Potter?" Lily asked in an annoyed voice.
James put on his most smoldering look before responding, "Oh, nothing too much, I just wanted to ask you if your dad was a king?"
Lily appeared confounded. "What?" She sputtered. "What are you talking about, Potter?"
James smiled and let out a soft chuckle before continuing to say, "Well, I figure he would have to be to make a princess like you." As he completed this sentence he gave her a suggestive wink that made Lily wince as though she were in pain.
"That was pathetic, Potter. You're not charming, you're a pig. Leave me alone." She walked away from a saddened James that it took Sirius half the night to get to cheer back up.
At the dinner table, Sirius finally got sick of James's melancholy mood and told him, "Look, she said no, it's not the end of the world. It's happened before, get over it!"
James's face had a sudden look of realization and Sirius thought that he had finally spoken some sense into his best friend. "You're right, it's happened before and it didn't kill me, so if I just keep trying…" Sirius blocked out the rest of what his friend had to say as his head slammed against the table. So much for talking sense into the boy, he thought bitterly, missing his best friend and partner in pranking chaos. Remus and Peter also looked annoyed that the boy was going to keep trying to win over a girl who quite honestly hated his guts.
As Sirius tuned back into what James was saying, as he never stopped talking, he heard, "Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, I've told her how good looking she is and called her a princess but maybe I need to connect to her muggle-born heritage. I've got to go, I have an idea!" It wasn't until later that night that the remaining marauders got to hear this brilliant idea. Unfortunately for James, he really could've used some more help thinking this one through…
"Evans!" James called, trying to catch her before she left to the girl's dormitory. She groaned in frustration before turning around with a glare that certainly should've killed James. James put on another winning smile, which had no affect on the fury that was radiating off of Lily Evans, before continuing to his line, "Was your dad an architect? Because I think someone stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes," he finished before flashing a smile in her direction.
The common room burst into laughter and Lily gave James a dirty look before spitting out, "Maybe you should put some actual thought into your pick up lines, Potter, because an architect builds houses. An astronaut goes into space," she put particular emphasis on the word astronaut before turning on her heel and stomping up the stairs. James looked baffled and his face turned a strange shade of red as realization struck him.
"Damn," he muttered as he walked off to his own dormitory, leaving some still giggling first years in his wake.
These pathetic pick up lines continued the next day when James asked Lily the classic, "Are you tired? 'Cause you've been running through my dreams all night." Lily simply rolled her eyes before walking away without a word. Later that week he tried another asking her, "If I followed you home, would you keep me?" He added a wink at the end of this one and Lily responded quickly.
Her tone was filled with disgust as she told him, "I would stick you in a shelter with the rest of the flea infested dogs, Potter, leave me alone." And she walked straight out of the Great Hall without even eating dinner.
As Christmas neared, James's pick up lines became more frequent, as though he were afraid that she would forget about him in the week that he would be going home and he needed to make a stronger impression on her. One particularly cold day, on the way back from a care of magical creatures class, James saw Lily hurrying back to the castle in the spitting snow. "Evans!" He called.
Lily didn't even look over her shoulder as she called out, "I don't have time for this, Potter, it's freezing out here!"
James began to jog after her, knowing that he would catch up with her brisk walk quickly enough, "But, Evans, I need your picture!" he called as he neared the red haired girl.
She whipped around with her hair whirling around her face. James wasn't expecting this sudden change and was jogging faster than he thought. With the layer of ice on the ground he found himself unable to stop and slid right into Lily Evans, knocking the both of them to the ground, landing on top of her. She let out a grunt as she hit the ground, then another as the rather heavy six-foot tall boy landed on top of her. "Potter! Get off me right now!" She shrieked as the wet snow seeped through her sweater.
James laughed at their compromising position and suddenly a thought came to his mind. It was dangerous, particularly because the fiery haired girl had an equally fiery temper, but his testosterone was racing through him and for just a moment he felt invincible, so he leant in and kissed Lily straight on the lips. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air and was suspended by what seemed like his ankle only it wasn't attached to anything, just suspended there, dangling him a foot above the ground.
"Potter, I swear to God, if you ever do something like that again I will make sure that it is the last thing that you ever do." Her voice had a particular malice in it that sent shivers down James's spine. She turned on her heel and trudged toward the castle, attempting to wipe the snow off of her back as she went.
"Wait! Evans! How do I get down?" He called after her, to which she responded using only one finger. Meanwhile, the fellow marauders were cracking up as they approached the scene.
"That line wasn't even that bad? This seems a little extreme," Remus said as he tried to stifle his own laughter. Sirius on the other hand was keeled over on the ground laughing so hard.
"Well, I didn't actually get to finish the line… But I got a kiss!" James said with a proud smile on his face.
"She kissed you?" Peter asked incredulously.
"Well, I don't know that she really kissed me… But I kissed her…" James trailed off as his adrenaline surged testosterone rush wore off and he clearly gained embarrassment at his current predicament.
Sirius finally regained his composure and said, "Mate, honestly, what the bloody hell were you thinking?"
Remus scoffed, "Clearly he wasn't."
James sighed, "She just looked so irresistible… I couldn't resist. Look, enough talk about me being stupid, can you just help me down?"
Remus examined James's predicament for fifteen minutes before finally saying, "I've never read about anything like this before… I don't know any counter-curses because… well, I don't even know what the curse was," he said finally. Suddenly there was a huge burst of laughter from behind the marauders, who all turned around to see Severus Snape, standing before them, laughing at James's suspended state.
"What do you want, Snivellus?" Sirius spat at the boy, the hatred dripping from his tone of voice.
"Did Lily do that to you, Potter?" Snape asked, still stifling his laughter.
"Why would you guess that, Snape?" James asked the boy, clearly with revulsion but also with a hint of curiosity.
Snape laughed some more before saying, "Because only Lily would know that spell, she's the only one that I shared it with." The boy thought that he was bragging, but in reality he might as well have been signing his own death sentence.
"So you're trying to say that you invented this spell by yourself, Greasy?" Sirius asked, advancing on the boy already. Snape's eyes widened slightly, realizing that it might have been a mistake to open his mouth at all.
"I… I…" Snape sputtered as he stepped backwards slowly. "I may know… I may have… I…" Suddenly Sirius shouted "Petrificus Totalus!" just as James had shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and as the boy fell to the ground, his wand flew into James's waiting hand.
"Now, Snivvy, you know as well as we do that if we drag you behind a few trees nobody's going to find you, primarily because nobody's going to come looking for you, so unless you want to spend a night freezing underneath the stars, you'll tell us how to get James down, got it?" Sirius said as he paced around the immobile and terrified boy.
"Liberacorpus!" Snape nearly shouted, clearly afraid to spend the night in the cold forbidden forest by himself. "The counter curse is liberacorpus!" Remus tried the spell and James fell to the ground with a smash and a crack.
"Ah!" He yelled, "Bloody hell!" James muttered a few other curses as he got to his feet. He used his want to release Snape, then flicked the boy's wand toward him and stomped inside. Snape chuckled at James's pain, however, when Remus shot him a deadly look he stopped almost instantaneously. James and Sirius could easily scare Snape, but Remus could petrify the boy in a way that the other two couldn't. This was probably due to the fact that Snape knew that Remus was not the type to fight, but in the few instances where the boy's anger did flare, he was able to do more damage in two minutes than his cohorts could accomplish in a day. Snape scurried toward the castle and into the dungeons without looking back at the marauders, who trailed James into the castle and found him in the hospital wing about ten minutes later.
James was free to go after a few simple spells were cast over his wrist and he walked down to the Great Hall with his fellow marauders. Remus broke the silence with a voice that was soft and calm, the kind of voice that was made to talk reason into others. "Mate, I know you like her, but maybe you should back off a bit. You're coming off a bit too strong and she's just not interested. I know you want her to be interested in you now, but maybe if you back off a little she will gain more affection for you than if you keep asking her out every day." One day, Remus's words would click in James's mind, but that day was not today.
"That's ridiculous, Moony," James told his friend. "I can't give up just because she shut me down. I need to persevere and she will see that my undying love for her isn't fading and is real." Sirius shook his head and Remus sighed heavily.
"Prongs, this girl hates you, give it up already! It's bloody annoying and none of us want to have to watch your back in case she curses you anymore!" Peter finally said the words that none of the others had dared to previously.
James turned on him with a malevolent glare. "Look, Wormtail, the lot of you, actually," James addressed the small group. "I don't need all of you to watch my back. If I'm so annoying then don't stay around me. You guys think that this is just another thing that I have to get over, but it's not. I'm serious this time." He turned to look at his friend as he noted, "And don't you dare make that stupid joke now, Padfoot. But really, I'm not giving up and that's that. Take it or leave it but this is me and that's my choice."
James began to walk away when a furious Sirius called after him, "So that's it, mate? You're going to leave us, your best friends, because you want some girl that doesn't even like you? She's right, you know," He started shaking his head as James turned to see what he was going to say next. "All you are is an arrogant, spoiled prat." Sirius walked toward the other end of the table as James strode out of the hall, leaving Remus and Peter in the middle, looking torn between their friendship and James's stubbornness.
Ultimately, the boys sat with Sirius and left James to mull things over. This is the fight that ended Padfoot and Prongs, best friends for life, for several months, but James did eventually come to his senses, only after being rejected many more times though. James spent the remainder of their fourth year with the standard pick up lines that were unimpressive to say the least. Fifth year was filled with the more repulsive ones, most of which earned him a slap across the face and a few even got him a swift kick to "little James". By sixth year, James's creativity was a bit better and Lily seemed to be used to his daily antics.
"If you were a teardrop, I would never cry for fear of losing you," James said in his most charming tone possible.
Lily sighed, "Pathetic, Potter, yet better than yesterday."
James's face lit up. "Was that a compliment from Lily Evans?" He asked, mock incredulousness evident in his tone. "I'm flattered!"
"No, Potter, that was not a compliment." Lily told him, turning and leaving him alone in the corridor, though James was sure he saw her face flush a light pink.
Later that spring was when he devised his most intricate scheme yet. He covered her bed with an arrangement of lilies, mostly different shades of purple with white ones scattered amongst them. In the middle of the bed was a large note that read: "Pretty flowers for the most beautiful flower in my life." This surprised Lily greatly, particularly because she couldn't understand how he could even get into the girl's dormitory, as it was supposed to repel men somehow. Alice couldn't be sure, but she swore that Lily's eyes lit up and she actually let out a laugh at the corny little note. What Alice didn't know was that Lily saved several of the flowers in a book and stored it beneath her bed; all that the other girls in the dormitory saw was Lily throwing them in a waste basket and tossing it to the side without a second thought.
After this stunt failed, James sighed heavily as he landed on his bed. "I think you were right, Remus." He said finally.
Remus looked up from the book he was reading. "About what?" He asked, genuinely curious.
"I think I'm going to stop… I mean, I've tried it all, I've thrown my heart on the line, I've tried to make her laugh, I've tried being sweet, and now I've spent an entire day finding flowers, changing their colours to her favourite and arranging them in her room. I guess you were right, I just need to stop. Maybe I need to… Give up," James looked very discouraged that his latest plan was a failure. Remus even felt bad for his friend, after spending over two years trying to get this girl on a date with him and he was finally tired out.
Sirius was the one who spoke next. "Mate, you said that you were never giving up on this girl, and I didn't believe you, Remus didn't believe you, Pete didn't believe you, Lily didn't believe you… But you were right, you never gave up. You haven't been on a single date in over two years because you've been asking this girl out every day for two years. Maybe you need to back off a little, but don't give up. It doesn't suit you to give up." James smiled at his friend who then added, "Not to mention we could use your focus a bit more on Quidditch."
"And your classes!" Remus added.
James laughed. "Remus, I'm doing great in my classes! I'm almost as good as you are!"
Remus gave his friend a nasty look saying, "Don't push it, Potter." All of the marauders laughed and for the rest of that night, they enjoyed themselves without a word about Lily Evans or a scheme or pick up line to be used the next day. And though the girl was still on James's mind, he felt relieved in a way that he hadn't in a very long time.
He took Sirius's advice and, as the Quidditch captain, began scheduling practices more frequently in preparation for their next big game against Ravenclaw for the House Cup. Sirius was starting to regret giving James the advice to focus more on Quidditch, and the entire team was sick of practicing six times a week, sometimes twice a day, but James liked having the distraction and half the time he would stay late after practices on his own.
He would still throw an offer out to Lily once in a while, usually something simple like just asking her to go out with him and she would always say no, but after nearly three years James had finally found a balance between this girl and the rest of his life. As the school year came to an end, the marauders were planning a summer filled with excitement because they were all finally of age. Lily was planning to have a nice, peaceful summer without James bothering her. Unfortunately, neither of their summers were what they were supposed to be and they would both emerge as different people when they returned to school in the fall.
A/N: I'm not positive how I feel about this chapter so definitely send me some feedback/advice. The next chapter will probably take longer to come out than this one because of school and lack of time and whatnot. Will try to put it out by next weekend.